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