Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup Thursday March 06 2025 #FMQs
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00:00Hello, I'm Jane Bradley, Assistant Editor of the Scotsman, and I'm here for our weekly
00:06First Minister's Questions roundup with Political Editor Alistair Grant. Hi, Alistair.
00:11Hello, how's it going?
00:13Good, thank you. How are you?
00:15Yeah, not too bad, not too bad.
00:17Good, good. So you have just come out of FMQs. So, yeah, I mean, can you just give us a sort
00:24of brief roundup as to what's been happening today?
00:27Yeah, so I think actually before we get into talking about First Minister's Questions,
00:31it's worth touching on a piece that Ian Blackford, the former SNP Westminster leader, wrote for
00:36Today's Times, essentially suggesting that the SNP should move away from its position
00:41backing unilateral nuclear disarmament. So he was saying that he still wants rid of nuclear
00:47weapons, he still does not support nuclear weapons, but he was sort of suggesting they
00:51go down the route of multilateral nuclear disarmament, which is arguing that you come
00:54up with these agreements in which countries agree to disarm together, rather than Scotland
00:58or the UK just deciding unilaterally to disarm its nuclear weapons.
01:03Now, the SNP has a longstanding policy against nuclear weapons, a longstanding policy of
01:08unilateral nuclear disarmament. It obviously does not want Trident on the Clyde, it doesn't
01:14want Trident to be renewed, doesn't want the billions of pounds that are spent on Trident
01:18to be spent in that way. And First Minister John Swinney has been talking about this even
01:22recently in defending the SNP's position, because obviously questions are being asked
01:26about it, given the global volatility around the situation in Ukraine, given the aggression
01:32of Russia on the global stage. So it's very much become a kind of live issue, and it's
01:36very interesting that someone with Ian Blackford's stature in the party, who is obviously not
01:41an MP anymore, he was an MP up until the last general election in July last year, but he's
01:46still a very well-known figure in the party, he's still a party bigwig, if you want to
01:51put it that way. He's someone who's still a household name, still very much associated
01:55with the SNP. And I think it's interesting that he was raising this issue. And we stopped
02:00John Swinney after First Minister's questions, a bunch of journalists kind of doorstepped
02:04him as he came out of the chamber, asking him about this. And John Swinney was sort
02:07of saying that he could see the argument that Ian Blackford was making, but he takes a different
02:12view and still backs unilateral disarmament. So I think it's just sort of interesting
02:16that this debate is happening within the SNP at the moment, even if it's not a debate
02:21the leadership particularly wants to have. But moving on to First Minister's questions,
02:26I thought probably the kind of most newsworthy thing, to be honest, was the Scottish Conservative
02:32leader, Russell Findlay, raising his plans, which we have covered in the last couple of
02:36days, this kind of idea he has that people should be able to leave school lower than
02:41the age of 16 at the moment. So 16 is the legal age for leaving school. I think it's
02:45been that way since 1972, or certainly the early 1970s. Longstanding policy in line with
02:51much of the other countries within the OECD. But Russell Findlay effectively suggesting
02:56that school doesn't work for everyone, the academic route doesn't work for everyone.
03:01We obviously want those people to go into employment, worthy, worthwhile employment,
03:07and the apprenticeship route works for a lot of people. And Russell Findlay effectively
03:11suggesting that some of those people could leave school at perhaps as low as the age
03:15of 14. He's not saying that they would leave education, they would go into either further
03:20education, such as colleges, or they would go into apprenticeships. Now it's proved to
03:25be quite a controversial idea. I think notably we've got a story on the Scotsman's website
03:29at the moment that people should check out from the Plumbing and Heating Federation,
03:34the kind of trade body for plumbing, and they're extremely dismissive of this idea. I think
03:40they call it irresponsible and reckless, effectively pointing out that people of the age of 14
03:45and 15 cannot go into some of the training that they would need to do within the plumbing
03:50and heating industry. So I think it's extremely interesting that they are so critical of it.
03:54And John Swinney today as well, just saying it's not an idea that he thinks has any
03:58credence either. So on the one hand, Russell Findlay is arguing that he's trying to put
04:03forward ideas, he's trying to put forward ways to tackle some of the problems within
04:08the education system that we know about. But on the other hand, it's not getting a
04:13positive perception from the opposition, or from the government anyway.
04:18Yeah, I mean, it's quite a controversial policy. And as you say, it has come across
04:21quite a lot of criticism from many, many different sides. And the plumbing trade body
04:27saying that they don't think it's a good idea, that is particularly interesting. I think
04:30they raised that, you know, it's 14 year olds are still children, and you know, a child
04:34cannot be doing these things, as you said. So that's, yeah, a difficult position.
04:39Did Russell Findlay address that particular aspect at all in Parliament today?
04:45He didn't go into that much detail on it. I mean, I think as far as the Conservatives
04:48are concerned, there's ways that you could do this. I think a lot of business figures
04:53have come out in the last couple of days. Jim McCall, I think was one of them. A couple
04:57of others, I think were in the Daily Mail today, backing the idea, you know, suggesting
05:02that there is something to it. I think, as I say, everyone accepts that there are problems
05:06within the education system. It doesn't work for everyone. The idea that everyone
05:10has to go down the academic route to be successful is clearly not true. There's lots
05:14of other routes in life. And to try and open those routes out to people, to make it
05:18easier for people to leave school and go into apprenticeships, is something that I think
05:22is backed across the political parties in Holyrood. But on this particular point of,
05:26like you say, children, effectively, 14 and 15 year olds, being able to make that kind
05:30of decision and leave school at that point is an extremely controversial idea.
05:34And I think as the Plumbing and Heating Federation pointed out, if I'm correct
05:38in saying this, that they still require people to have mathematics to a certain
05:42level. The idea that people would be kind of moving away from that, I think,
05:46is something that would cause a degree of controversy.
05:50Yeah, absolutely. And staying on the subject of the Scottish Conservatives,
05:54there's obviously been talk today about two potential council defections
05:58to reform. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
06:02Yes, this is the latest in the kind of line of defections from the Conservatives
06:06to reform that we're seeing from councillors. I think they've got
06:10around half a dozen now, reform councillors, or maybe this takes them up to eight
06:14or something like that. Still, you know, single figures, but it's
06:18a worry for the Scottish Conservatives. I think you can really see that in Holyrood
06:22and the rhetoric coming from the Scottish Tories.
06:26Russell Findlay, I think, was asked about it after First Minister's questions.
06:30My colleague Rachel Aimery was speaking to him about it with other journalists.
06:34And I think the point that they always make is that any vote for reform in Scotland
06:38can only benefit the SNP. That's the argument that the Scottish Conservatives would use
06:42because it eats into the unionist vote. And the Scottish Conservatives see themselves
06:46as the best choice for those people who want to combat the SNP
06:50but are not going to be voting Labour.
06:54So anything that divides that chunk of voters is bad for the Scottish Conservatives.
06:58And I think you can really see that, as I say, in some of their rhetoric,
07:02some of the speeches that Russell Findlay's been giving, the talk of the
07:06left-wing Holyrood bubble, the fact that he's standing up for common sense Scotland.
07:10You could say that some of these are slightly populist arguments,
07:14so certainly arguments are aimed, perhaps, at some of those voters who are tempted by
07:19reform, who feel fed up with the Holyrood system, fed up with what they would see
07:23as the political elites in Scotland. So I think it is a source of concern
07:27for the Scottish Tories. I think one thing I would say that came out from
07:31Richard Tice's visit to Scotland this morning is that when he was asked
07:35about the names of these councillors that had defected, he didn't appear to know
07:39their full names. And the suggestion was, I think he was even asked what councillors they were from,
07:43and he seemed to try and avoid that question too. So I think there's huge questions about
07:47reform in Scotland, what they actually stand for, what their policy
07:51platform is in Scotland. They don't have a separate leadership north of the border.
07:55They effectively have a councillor called Thomas Kerr, who defected
07:59a few weeks ago, who's become a de facto spokesman in Scotland in some ways.
08:03I think there's just huge questions over what reform actually means
08:07north of the border.
08:09Thank you very much Alistair, all very interesting.
08:13You can read more about this on the Scotsman website, or follow us
08:17on our social media, and if you're out and about today, please do pick up a paper.