The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday September 04 2024

The Scotsman

The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday September 04 2024 with deputy editor Dale Miller and political editor Alistair Grant

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Wednesday.

00:05My name's Dale Miller.

00:06I'm Head of News at the Scotsman and I'm joined by Dunn.

00:10I've called myself Head of News, haven't I?

00:14Andy, take again, flash the credits up, we'll get it right.

00:17Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Wednesday.

00:32My name's Dale Miller.

00:33I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our political editor, Alastair Grant.

00:39Alastair, welcome.

00:40We're going to get into what's been a really massive start to Holyrood resuming.

00:46It took up most of Tuesday.

00:49We'll flash up a front page of today's Scotsman, which shows spending cuts, 500 million pounds.

00:57They were announced across a range of sectors and Alastair, I'll get you to break that down shortly,

01:02but no department really across every portfolio was spared.

01:08We had cuts in active travel, which the Scotsman first broke as a story back on Saturday,

01:14but areas such as health, education are all seeing cuts this financial year

01:20as the SNP and Shona Robison deals with a massive spending black hole.

01:26There's repercussions of this that'll rumble on throughout the program for government,

01:30which John Swinney is announcing and unveiling today.

01:34But Alastair, I want to dig down into these spending cuts.

01:37It had been trailed that it would be significant, that they would touch on a lot of portfolios

01:44and really all areas of the Scottish government.

01:46But how lasting do you think the impact will be of what's been announced?

01:51Yeah, so these were significant cuts.

01:53Shona Robison, the finance secretary, essentially outlining up to 500 million pounds worth of cuts

02:00in an attempt to plug this black hole, this financial black hole in the Scottish government's budget,

02:05which equates to about one billion pounds.

02:07So as well as making these spending cuts, the Scottish government also raided cash

02:13that was raised via the ScotWind scheme, which people might remember.

02:16That's where parts of the Scottish seabed was leased out for offshore wind farms.

02:20That was money that was initially earmarked for tackling the twin climate and biodiversity crises.

02:26Instead, 460 million pounds of that cash, or up to 460 million pounds of that cash,

02:32will be used to help plug this budget black hole.

02:35So those 500 million pounds of cuts, there's lots of different elements to them.

02:39Some of it's been announced already.

02:41We had various things the Scottish government's been rolling out,

02:45for example, saying it's not going to continue with its peak railfares trial scheme.

02:49It's not going to roll out free bus travel for asylum seekers as was planned.

02:54But we also had a letter that was published by Shona Robison to a Holyrood committee,

02:58which went into some detail about 188 million pounds of savings that are new,

03:04that we didn't know about.

03:06Like you say, it's across all portfolios.

03:08It's essentially kind of salami slicing into the budget,

03:11taking little bits out across a vast range of different areas.

03:15I think notably, 115.8 million pounds of savings within the health and social care portfolio,

03:2118.8 million pounds of that is mental health services.

03:25There's been savings identified within adult social care.

03:28So these are very important areas that will have a real world impact for people.

03:33But Shona Robison kind of offering her assurances that the health portfolio

03:39will seek to protect those key frontline emergency services.

03:43Elsewhere, we had 23.4 million pounds stripped out of the net zero and energy portfolio.

03:49That's areas such as nature restoration.

03:51We had some kind of stories about that in the lead up to this announcement.

03:55So we kind of knew a little bit about that.

03:57It's stuff like energy efficiency, decarbonisation schemes.

04:01There was 15.7 million cut from the social justice portfolio.

04:05And as you touched on there, there was 23.7 million pounds taken from the active

04:10and sustainable travel budget.

04:12So these are things that, you know, they're very close to a lot of what the Scottish

04:16government is trying to do in terms of its kind of message to the public.

04:20There's a lot of outrage from the Greens about that impact on the active travel budget,

04:24as you'd expect. But just concerns across parliament about the impact of these cuts.

04:30And also Shona Robison hinting that it's not quite over yet,

04:34because she was saying that recruitment freezes, which are currently in place,

04:38essentially, in the Scottish government, will be extended across the public sector

04:42where they can be while protecting some of those frontline services like the NHS,

04:46for example. And essentially, it's going to have to be difficult decisions going

04:50into that Scottish budget on December 4th. A lot of it, the Scottish government argues,

04:55depends on the money that comes north from Westminster.

04:59But we've also had experts pointing out that the Scottish government isn't blameless here.

05:03We had the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the well-respected think tank,

05:07pointing out that some of this is down to the Scottish government's own planning

05:11and decisions the Scottish government has made. But I mean, it really is a tricky situation

05:16for the Scottish government. And particularly, you mentioned it going into the programme

05:20for government today, where the Scottish government sets out its legislative agenda

05:23for the coming parliamentary term. It'll have a real impact on what the Scottish government

05:27can actually do going forward. I mean, John Finnie has made one of his key priorities,

05:32or actually the key priority of his government, tackling child poverty.

05:37But there isn't an awful lot of money on the table to do that.

05:40And if he does make headway in that area, for example, raising the Scottish child payment,

05:45that takes money away from other areas of the budget.

05:48So it's an incredibly difficult juggling act, I think, going into this statement today,

05:53but also going into the budget on December 4th.

05:57Alastair, if you were sitting there, you were glass half full, you may say,

06:00thank goodness they had the $460 million from ScotWind.

06:04Otherwise, they could have been in even bigger trouble than what they've announced

06:07with these cuts. If you're glass half empty, I saw the Greens' statement yesterday,

06:13you're probably angry not only about the sustainable travel, but the fact all this money

06:18had originally been earmarked to fight the climate crisis, and that's no longer there.

06:24What do you think the average person sitting at home will think of this?

06:27Because at the end of the day, there was some warnings about would free prescriptions

06:31be touched with those key policy platforms that we know have always been linked

06:36to the SNP? Were they under threat? It seems like they haven't been

06:40in these initial announcements. If you're sitting at home,

06:43do you think people are thinking, I can stomach these cuts,

06:48or do you think they'll be upset about the direction of travel?

06:52I think probably a mixture of those. I think there probably is an understanding

06:55in the public that this is incredibly difficult financial times.

06:58We had the new Labour UK Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, standing up in Westminster

07:03not that long ago saying that there was a £22 billion black hole in the public finances

07:07that Labour wasn't fully aware of when it took power. They've obviously made decisions

07:11in the back of that. They've chosen not to get rid of the two-child benefit cap.

07:15They've chosen to get rid of the universality of the winter fuel payment,

07:20which has an impact on Scotland. So I think there is an understanding

07:23that these are difficult times for the public. I think on things like free prescriptions

07:27and tuition fees, which are these kind of universal benefits,

07:30which critics say benefit the middle class, I think the specific nature

07:37of the cuts the Scottish Government is making are certainly what has been said

07:41to me behind the scenes, is that those would not have made any difference

07:44to this black hole because they're not in-year budgetary requirements.

07:48So even if they did make a change to, for example, free prescriptions

07:51or free tuition fees, that wouldn't help the black hole they're struggling with

07:55at the moment. That would only come into play in future years.

07:58This was an in-year problem they were facing that they had to do something about.

08:01That's why a lot of the things that they've announced, a lot of the cuts

08:04that they've implemented are to things that haven't yet been rolled out.

08:08They're to things that were planned, for example, that free bus travel

08:12for asylum seekers, their spending they can make in terms of staff costs

08:16or, for example, that recruitment freeze. They're essentially salami slicing

08:21into the budget in areas that they think they can cope with,

08:24taking money away from without having too much of an impact

08:27on frontline services, although of course these things will always have an impact.

08:31I think to go back to the public perception of this,

08:34I think it is worth touching on some of the stuff the Institute

08:37for Fiscal Studies said. I think there will be a frustration among the public

08:40about the Scottish Government constantly passing the buck to Westminster,

08:44even though it is true to say that the Scottish Government gets most

08:49of its budget from Westminster, but IFS making very clear that some

08:52of this is also down to the Scottish Government's own decisions.

08:55For example, they budgeted for public sector pay deals of between 2% and 3%.

09:00That was always likely going to be insufficient to avoid industrial action.

09:04They've then gone above that. That has an impact.

09:08They've not had proper planning in place.

09:11We've also had the council tax freeze that was announced

09:14at the SNP conference last year. That's had an impact.

09:18The size of the public sector in Scotland is bigger than in England.

09:21All these things are decisions that have been made by the Scottish Government.

09:25So I think probably the public perception is mixed on this.

09:28I think one of the things the Scottish Government will be worried about

09:31is that if you look at that Scottish Social Attitude Survey

09:34that I think came out last month, it showed that trust

09:37in the Scottish Government is at an all-time low,

09:39and people aren't happy with public services.

09:41They're not happy with the state of the NHS.

09:45Happiness with the NHS or satisfaction with the NHS

09:48has fallen markedly in recent years.

09:50So, yeah, the Scottish Government is feeling the squeeze

09:53in terms of public perception on its handling of public services.

09:57So that will worry them going forward.

10:00And we saw yesterday, talking about pay deals as well,

10:03a union coming forward that was linked to the bin strikes

10:06and rejecting the government offer.

10:08So the pay deals are completely ironed away

10:11as we head into the back end of the year just yet.

10:13You can read our full coverage of everything spoken about

10:17around spending cuts, plus the details from the program

10:21for government where it's announced this afternoon at scotsman.com.

10:24Just go to the politics tab in the navigation bar

10:28and you'll get all the very latest from Alistair and his team

10:31covering every inch of what's happening at the Scottish Parliament.

10:34Thanks very much for joining us.

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