David Bol at the STUC conference 2025
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00:00Hi there, I'm David Boll, the Scotsman's Deputy Political Editor. I'm here in
00:04Dundee where the First Minister has given his keynote speech to the STUC. He
00:10didn't say very much new to be perfectly honest, it was very much
00:12reaffirming things that he'd already said, particularly about wanting the UK
00:16government to nationalize Grangemouth, talking about the steelworks in
00:20Scunthorpe and how he thought there was a parallel there and that Scotland was
00:24being neglected by the UK government's decisions on industrial strategy. He did
00:28give a warning without interventions from the UK government that some of
00:33Scotland's industrial bases could be kind of left behind and not prepared for the
00:36future. So we heard from him on that, there was also more talk about raising
00:40concerns about Labour's national insurance contribution increases that
00:45businesses have been very keen to point out and basically kind of hinting that
00:51the austerity agenda from Westminster was not in the interest of workers and trade
00:55unions and that more needed to be done to kind of strengthen workers' rights. He
00:59also reaffirmed his government's position to protect and care for LGBT plus
01:07rights, particularly trans people, given the Supreme Court judgment last week. He
01:11acknowledged that they have kind of felt very anxious, uncomfortable and there's a
01:18lot of uncertainty around what this judgment means for trans rights going
01:22forward. Now Ros Foyer, the General Secretary of the SDUC, has been very
01:26critical of the Supreme Court decision. She thinks it's unworkable and the
01:32consequences have been a bit, the practicalities haven't really been ironed out.
01:36John Swinney told journalists after his speech that businesses should wait for the
01:41full guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission to be published so
01:47businesses know legally where they stand on these issues and should wait. They have
01:52to be signed off by UK ministers so it's very much calling for caution and
01:56suggesting that businesses and organisations should just wait for that
02:01final guidance which we won't get until the summer. Tomorrow Anna Sawa will give
02:05his speech and Ros Foyer will give her keynote speech to close Congress so we'll
02:11always have to find out what they'll have to say about all these issues and
02:13more tomorrow.