First Ministers Questions unpicked with Rachel and Dale

The Scotsman

Thursday September 05 2024 - First Ministers Questions unpicked with Rachel and Dale

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to a special edition of the Scotsman's Politics Show.

00:05My name's Dale Miller, I'm Deputy Editor at the Scotsman,

00:08and I'm joined by our political correspondent, Rachel Armory.

00:12And Rachel, we're here to talk about the first FMQs back after recess.

00:17It feels like we've been waiting forever to get back into it,

00:20although politics seemed to rumble throughout the festival season,

00:23throughout August.

00:25A lot of chat about what the landscape in terms of spending cuts

00:29would look like, and we got a good idea of that this week,

00:32where the cuts were going to fall,

00:34and then John Swinney set out his program for government yesterday,

00:37and it seems as though that fed into everything that was discussed

00:41at FMQs and the attack lines today.

00:44Yes, unsurprisingly, the program for government,

00:46which was announced yesterday by the First Minister,

00:49really dominated First Minister's questions today,

00:51particularly when it came to questions from Douglas Ross,

00:54the Scottish Conservative leader.

00:56He was very keen to go on eradicating child poverty

00:59and free school meals.

01:01That's because when we went into the program for government,

01:04John Swinney said that the priority would be tackling child poverty,

01:07and yet one of the headline announcements to come out of it

01:10was that the universal free school meal pledge

01:13to roll out free school meals to primary 6 to 7 children

01:16is going to be shelved for the time being

01:18because there's just not the money for it.

01:20So that was quite interesting to see that the Conservatives went in on that

01:23and the Scottish Greens went in on it too.

01:25Quite a fiery exchange between Douglas Ross and John Swinney.

01:28Of course, Douglas Ross only had a few FMQs left as Conservative leader,

01:32so trying to get all of it out at once,

01:34Swinney's still got the chance with John Swinney.

01:37Quite interesting as well, the reaction.

01:39It was quite an angry reaction that he got back from the First Minister as well.

01:42I did overhear one of the Front Bench Ministers.

01:44I think it was Shona Robison saying, unbelievable as well,

01:47that the Conservatives are wanting to question the SNP on child poverty.

01:51Lorna Slater from the Scottish Greens,

01:53she also went in on free school meals and child poverty,

01:56again, accusing the Government of abandoning all Green policy

01:59as soon as the Greens were out of the room.

02:01Let's not forget that it was only four months ago

02:03that the Scottish Greens were part of the SNP Green Government

02:07and Lorna Slater herself as Government Minister.

02:09They are now no longer there and she says the SNP

02:13are getting rid of all the Green policies now that they are no longer there.

02:16So quite interesting debate there,

02:18the two different sides of how it's going.

02:21Rachel, on that, David Bowle, part of our politics team,

02:25he spoke to Lorna Slater, a head of FMQs,

02:28and she's pretty crystal clear, you can read that story

02:31at Scotsman.com as we speak, that the Greens will not be voting

02:35for the Budget when it comes to December.

02:38Now, we know that the SNP in the past used the Greens vote as well

02:44to have the numbers.

02:45They don't have the numbers without the Greens' support,

02:49which makes things a little bit sticky, a little bit tricky.

02:52But do you see the Greens budging at all on their position,

02:57given what was outlined this week?

03:00They're still pretty annoyed at how the Bute House agreement ended.

03:03So I can't see it getting better between now and the Budget

03:06on 4 December.

03:07There are plenty of Green policies that have now been either shelved

03:11or paused or watered down.

03:13So one being the free school meals, for example,

03:15free bus travel, particularly free bus travel for asylum seekers,

03:19the pledge to ban conversion therapy in Scotland.

03:22All of those have sort of been watered down or paused, basically,

03:26in this programme for government.

03:28And also if we look at the Budget for energy and net zero,

03:31I think it was about £23 million was cut from that department

03:35on Tuesday, and a further £23 million was also cut

03:38from active travel projects as well, another two things

03:41that the Scottish Greens have championed in the past year or so.

03:44So yes, they're very annoyed at all these things being cut

03:47and being paused.

03:48And when it comes to the arithmetic here in Parliament,

03:51they kind of need the Greens' support here.

03:54We can presume that Labour and the Conservatives will vote

03:56against the Budget.

03:58There's one Alba MSP, but unfortunately that's not enough

04:01to make a difference on either side.

04:03So you're then left with the Lib Dems and the Greens.

04:05If the Greens are not going to vote for the Budget,

04:08the SNP are then relying solely on the Lib Dems

04:10to get their Budget through.

04:12In the past, the Lib Dems have not backed the government

04:14on their budgetary announcements.

04:16So it's going to be very interesting to see exactly

04:18what happens there.

04:20There might have to be some political to-and-fro-ing

04:22between all the different parties, between now and the Budget

04:24at the start of December.

04:26Horse trading, it's like back to the good old days, Rachel.

04:29Just on the winter fuel payment, we know the UK government

04:34has effectively, is means testing it.

04:37We know that the Scottish Government have had to follow through

04:39and replicate that, even though seemingly they didn't want

04:42to take that step.

04:43Am I right in thinking that came up at FMQs today as well?

04:46Twice, actually, yes.

04:47Two different MSPs brought up the winter fuel payments

04:50when John's money was being questioned today.

04:53Quite interesting, I think it was Kenneth Gibson

04:55who brought this up.

04:56He was questioning why this money has been cut

04:59from winter fuel payments, and yet a similar amount

05:01of money has been gone into the Scotland office,

05:04and he was accusing the new Labour government in Westminster

05:07of undermining devolution by doing this.

05:09I'm pretty sure that's not the point.

05:11What's happened here, there's two different pots of money

05:14that can't really cross over there, so that's probably

05:16not what has happened here.

05:18Quite interesting, because it does play into the SNP's narrative

05:20of having Westminster undermining their decisions that are being

05:24made at Holyrood.

05:25But as you were saying, winter fuel payments are being devolved

05:27to Scotland this year.

05:29This is the first time that the Scottish Government

05:30is in charge of these payments.

05:32When Labour did announce this earlier in the summer,

05:35that they were wanting to mean test it because they had

05:37no money left, the Scottish Government immediately said

05:40we want to keep it universal, but straight away you can see

05:43the money just wasn't there for that.

05:45I think it's a case of both the free school meals

05:48and the winter fuel payments are both governments not having

05:52enough cash to go around, and so we're both having

05:54to make difficult decisions there.

05:56So quite interesting that both sides are blaming each other

05:59for each thing, but both are having to make decisions

06:01when it comes to policies such as this.

06:04Look, you can read all of our coverage around what was announced

06:07in the program for government, the shelving of the free school

06:11meals, including our analysis of what took place,

06:15as well as our coverage from First Minister's questions today

06:18and that exclusive interview with Lorna Slater about just how angry

06:22she and the Greens are about the policy decisions taken

06:26by the government this week.

06:28That's all at Scotsman.com.

06:29Follow us on Facebook, Ext and Instagram, and please go

06:33and support local journalists and buy a copy of a paper tomorrow

06:36for all the very latest in Scottish news.

06:39Rachel, thank you to you and thanks to all our viewers

06:42for joining us.

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