00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Politics Show. I'm here with our political editor Alistair Grant who comes to us from Holyrood to wrap up another First Minister's questions.
00:12And Alistair, it wasn't the most eventful of FMQs in and of itself until we heard from Douglas Ross later in proceedings. What did Douglas have to say?
00:23Yeah, so Douglas Ross, the former Scottish Conservative leader, raised a point of order at the very end of First Minister's questions.
00:31He was alleging that Jamie Hepburn, the SNP Minister for Parliamentary Business, had physically assaulted and verbally abused him on the way out of the Parliamentary Chamber yesterday.
00:42Jamie Hepburn is not in the Chamber today, so we haven't heard from him about this.
00:47But the First Minister, John Swinney, was asked about this as he left the Chamber by journalists and effectively said this was the first he was hearing about it and that he would have to consider it and consider what had happened.
00:59So quite a dramatic moment, as you say. I mean, the rest of First Minister's questions wasn't that exciting, but it's quite unusual that a point of order at the end is used to bring up such a potentially serious allegation.
01:13And I think we've got a clip of Douglas Ross speaking that we can play now.
01:17Point of order, Douglas Ross.
01:21Presiding officer, you know what I'm going to mention because I emailed you this morning seeking to raise this at First Minister's questions.
01:28First Minister, as I left the Chamber yesterday, I was physically assaulted and verbally abused by your Minister for Parliamentary Business, Jamie Hepburn.
01:38Through the chair, please, Mr Ross.
01:40This was the point I would make to the First Minister.
01:43I'm wondering if the First Minister will make a statement and take an opportunity to say that he has a zero-tolerance approach to threatening and intimidating behaviour by his ministers.
01:54I have raised this yesterday afternoon with parliamentary officials.
01:58I notice the Minister for Parliamentary Business is not in the Chamber this afternoon.
02:04Therefore, will he be making a statement on this incident later today?
02:08I will say, you can see the scenes there, a highly unusual limb to do FMQs.
02:16And you'll be able to read that story and any comments that Jamie Hepburn has to say at scotsman.com throughout today.
02:23We talked about FMQs.
02:25Otherwise, Ferries and Fergus Marine came up.
02:28What did Johnson have?
02:29Yes, this was raised by Scottish Labour leader Anna Sarwar and actually a little bit by Alex Cole-Hamilton, the Scottish Lib Dem leader as well.
02:39Anna Sarwar basically grouping two issues together here, very much a transport theme.
02:44He started off by asking about the Alexander Dennis bus manufacturer.
02:48Alexander Dennis had previously set out plans to close its facilities in Falkirk and Larbert with a loss of around 400 jobs and move production to Yorkshire.
02:57And we then had an announcement from the Scottish Government pledging a £4 million furlough scheme to help prevent that happening.
03:04But there's lots of questions about what this means for the long-term future of Alexander Dennis, whether it's a short-term fix, what guarantees the Scottish Government has received in response to that action.
03:15And Anna Sarwar very much saying that a Scottish Labour government, he says, would ensure that buses, ferries were manufactured and built in Scotland.
03:24And he was also pointing to Ferguson Marine, the Port Glasgow shipyard.
03:28We've obviously covered a lot in the pages of the Scotsman, his various troubles building those two Calmac ferries.
03:34And he was raising the calls by campaigners, political figures to make a direct award of a new Calmac ferry to Ferguson Marine.
03:42So rather than putting it out to contract or to tender to, for any kind of yards around the world, to bid for making a direct award to Ferguson Marine.
03:51And John Swinney, he's said this before a few days ago, but he was saying it again in the chamber today, saying that that is something that the Scottish Government is actively considering.
04:00He said it's very complicated.
04:02There's lots of moving parts to this.
04:04There's lots of things the Scottish Government has to take into account.
04:06But it is, in his words, strongly engaged in exploring this.
04:10So John Swinney is saying he's all for buses, ferries being built in Scotland.
04:15It's something the Scottish Government wants to see.
04:17Again, it's a complicated issue.
04:19And it's one that I'm sure will be raised again in the Holyrood Chamber, the run up to that election, that Holyrood election next year.
04:27And we should say this comes against the backdrop, Alistair, of four smaller ferries being built in Turkey, where there have been significant delays of late as well.
04:37The first of those ferries still to be delivered to the islands in Scotland.
04:42Just lastly, the first question off the top was from Russell Finlay, and it was about benefits.
04:49We love to throw around the word black hole, but it was linked to an audit Scotland report.
04:53Can you talk us through it?
04:54Yeah, he was raising that audit Scotland report that came out overnight.
04:59It's basically pointing out the funding gap that the Scottish Government faces due to its rising benefits bill in Scotland.
05:07Benefits have been partly devolved in Scotland.
05:10This particular report was talking about the adult disability payment and the impact that has on the fact that by 2029-30,
05:18there will be a £770 million funding gap that Scotland has in relation to that because of the differences in the application process in Scotland being a bit easier.
05:29It's not meant to be as tight and, I suppose, restrictive as the system down south.
05:35That's a deliberate choice the Scottish Government has made.
05:37And that that forms quite a large part of an overall £2 billion funding gap that the overall social security system faces in Scotland by 2029-30.
05:48Douglas Ross phrasing this audit Scotland report, which pointed out that the Scottish Government does not currently have a plan to deal with that funding gap.
05:54Certainly not one that we are aware of.
05:56Russell Finlay asking John Swinney about that plan.
05:59And John Swinney effectively saying that the Scottish Government has successfully balanced its budget every year since the SNP took power in 2007.
06:08Now, the Scottish Government is legally obliged to balance its budget, but nevertheless, he was saying that it has done that.
06:14He was also saying that if Russell Finlay, the Scottish story leader, is raising these issues, he was putting the question directly to him,
06:20whose benefits are going to be taken away, whose benefits do you not want to see in Scotland?
06:25And he was accusing the Conservatives of wanting to pursue and harass the most vulnerable people in society, as John Swinney says the UK Conservative Government did when it was in charge.
06:36So this is very much an issue that Russell Finlay, the Scottish Tory leader, has raised before and will raise again.
06:43It's an issue they view as quite a powerful one for them when they run up to that Hollywood election.
06:48And much like I was saying earlier on when I was talking about Anna Sarwar's question, I think just increasingly at First Minister's questions,
06:55we'll just see these kind of key election points being hammered home again and again when it comes to the run up to that election.
07:02It will be very much a kind of a long campaign.
07:04We're in this for the long haul, I'm afraid.
07:06You can read that story about the 770 million pounds in that.
07:20It's at scotsman.com.
07:21If you ever can't find any of our politics coverage, just go to the tab in the navigation bar.
07:27You'll get all the very latest.
07:29Please follow us on social media channels.
07:31You'll get the latest on Donald Trump, who is speaking to Sir Keith Starmer at Chequers today.
07:39And go out and pick up a copy of The Scotsman in print tomorrow, where you'll get the full wrap of today's proceedings,
07:46including the story on the latest with Douglas Ross.
07:48Thanks to you, Alistair, and thanks to everyone else for tuning in.
Be the first to comment