Scotsman deputy editor Alan Young speaks to deputy political editor David Bol about the latest in UK politics
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Wednesday. I'm Alan Young, I'm
00:14Deputy Editor of the Scotsman. I'm joined today on a big day in politics by our Deputy
00:19Political Editor, David Ball. Hi David.
00:21Morning Alan.
00:22Let's have a look at the front page first off before we get into it. And we splashed
00:28today on that news yesterday of a £14 million investment by the Scottish Government in the
00:35troubled Ferguson Marine yard. That of course is a shipyard which is still struggling to
00:40build Scotland's two over budget and long delayed ferries. There was some not so good
00:48news for Ferguson Marine however yesterday in that the contract for a new fleet of smaller
00:55ferries is going out to tender. There had been calls to award directly to the yard.
01:01You can get into all that in today's paper and online at scotsman.com. At the top of
01:09the page there we continue our build up to the open late this week in Troon and you may
01:16be able to see in the wing column there a preview of the King's speech today. That is
01:23the big event and that is what I want to speak to David about. So David, today is the
01:29state of open air parliament King's speech where he will set out the Keir Starmer's programme
01:39for government in the first parliamentary session. It's a big event because it's a brand
01:46new government obviously so we're expecting a lot of content and we're also expecting
01:50a lot of content that will be relevant to Scotland unusually this time around.
01:54Yeah that's right it's basically Keir Starmer setting out what he's going to do in the next
01:58year. It's the state opening of parliament. The speech is read out by the King but it's
02:03written by Keir Starmer and his government and we think there'll be around 35 bills
02:07and legislation that he hopes to bring forward in the next year. We won't have any surprises
02:13particularly it'll just be some of the highlights from the Labour manifesto that we've become very
02:18familiar with during the election campaign and just what they they hope to deliver in the first
02:22year. Like he said a lot of them will be relevant to Scotland. We've got those things on sort of
02:28workers rights that they've been making a big fuss about, stuff on the sort of the new mission
02:34control to sort of deliver their clean power by 2030 which is obviously key to Scotland because
02:39Scotland's going to play a big sort of part in that. We've got the new border security commands
02:45sort of plans and stuff to tackle illegal migration. So unlike ones we've seen previously
02:51where a lot of it is sort of devolved and some of it will be there's sort of big housing plans
02:55and planning shake-ups for England and more devolution for sort of English cities, there
03:01will be a lot that will affect Scotland. That's not really surprising given the importance that
03:05Keir Starmer put on Scotland during the campaign and to kind of launch his time in government.
03:12Indeed well remember obviously he was he was up here an incredible amount. It seemed like every
03:17every week during the campaign. There's a lot of focus as well on energy and oil and gas
03:25like you mentioned and GB energy. We know Labour say GB energy, we don't know exactly what it is
03:33yet I think it's fair to say but it's going to be based in somewhere in Scotland. Do you know,
03:38would we like to hear any any more detail around that? Well we've been we're hearing that we maybe
03:44won't get an announcement on the place today. It is taking some time and it does appear that
03:49they haven't really announced or decided where it's going to be yet. I know during the campaign
03:53Keir Starmer was asked repeatedly on one of those trips that you mentioned, where is this going to
03:58be? Is it going to be Aberdeen basically? And he kept saying well we haven't even decided yet. I'm
04:02sure they have like in the background but Aberdeen would be the the obvious place. Maybe
04:07Grangemouth if they want to try and put a proper future for that site. It's obviously been talked
04:14about a lot since Keir Starmer's come in but I don't think we'll get an announcement on the
04:18the location today. Maybe we will but there's some sort of speculation that that's still
04:22one for down the line. But some of the legislation as part of those energy plans sort of setting up
04:28that wealth fund we are expecting to hear a lot about. So hopefully we'll get some more detail on
04:33how that will actually look like and come through. Indeed and there is one element that you're
04:40reporting on already. It should be on scotsman.com very soon and that is the potential return
04:48of the deposit return scheme. Remember that? It's back. Yeah I remember that shambles. Yeah so
04:54Labour have come into government and I guess it's quite normal of a new government is to kind of
04:58look at things that were sort of in process and review them. And they've told me that
05:05the government is going to review the deposit return scheme. It was meant to
05:09be launched in a sort of UK-wide basis by 2025. The Conservative government delayed that to 2029
05:16just because they hadn't really done any of the groundwork. And there was lots of discussions
05:21behind the scenes from the four nations including the Scottish government and the Welsh government
05:25who were very annoyed about this sort of glass bottles being excluded from the UK government.
05:31The UK government kind of way back wanted glass included and changed their mind.
05:36And that really kind of torpedoed the whole system in Scotland. It had lots of problems anyway.
05:42But the fact that Alistair Jack who was the Scottish secretary at the time wouldn't
05:47give an exclusion to the internal market bill where everything's on a level playing field
05:50across the UK. And it basically wasn't seen as being financially viable to proceed
05:56with glass not being included. But the Welsh government in our Labour, so we kind of
06:04hope or think that maybe glass could return to the fold because the UK government are obviously
06:10going to be led a little bit by Labour. They're not going to sort of go against their colleagues.
06:15They've already talked about last year maybe working with the Welsh government to look at how
06:19they could sort of apply this across the board. So there is maybe a chance that we could see glass
06:25being included in that. But either way it's going to be reviewed and hopefully they're going to
06:30bring it forward. They are quite committed to bringing in the DRS probably a bit quicker than
06:36their predecessors wanted to. So yeah we'll just have to wait and see. But they are,
06:39they have committed to reviewing that policy and it may change quite a bit.
06:45Indeed, one to keep an eye out for. Thanks very much David. Please keep an eye on scotsman.com
06:51where we've got a live blog running on the lead up to the King's Speech and we will have a breaking
06:58analysis on what it all means for Scotland as well. If you're on the site please do subscribe
07:04if you can and then you will be able to watch and read everything that we do. And if you're out and
07:10about today please do also pick up a copy of the paper. But for me and for David, bye for now.