Thursday September 05 2024 - First Ministers Questions unpicked with Rachel and Dale
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00:00Hello and welcome to a special edition of the Scotsman's Politics Show.
00:05My name's Dale Miller, I'm Deputy Editor at the Scotsman,
00:08and I'm joined by our political correspondent, Rachel Armory.
00:12And Rachel, we're here to talk about the first FMQs back after recess.
00:17It feels like we've been waiting forever to get back into it,
00:20although politics seemed to rumble throughout the festival season,
00:23throughout August.
00:25A lot of chat about what the landscape in terms of spending cuts
00:29would look like, and we got a good idea of that this week,
00:32where the cuts were going to fall,
00:34and then John Swinney set out his program for government yesterday,
00:37and it seems as though that fed into everything that was discussed
00:41at FMQs and the attack lines today.
00:44Yes, unsurprisingly, the program for government,
00:46which was announced yesterday by the First Minister,
00:49really dominated First Minister's questions today,
00:51particularly when it came to questions from Douglas Ross,
00:54the Scottish Conservative leader.
00:56He was very keen to go on eradicating child poverty
00:59and free school meals.
01:01That's because when we went into the program for government,
01:04John Swinney said that the priority would be tackling child poverty,
01:07and yet one of the headline announcements to come out of it
01:10was that the universal free school meal pledge
01:13to roll out free school meals to primary 6 to 7 children
01:16is going to be shelved for the time being
01:18because there's just not the money for it.
01:20So that was quite interesting to see that the Conservatives went in on that
01:23and the Scottish Greens went in on it too.
01:25Quite a fiery exchange between Douglas Ross and John Swinney.
01:28Of course, Douglas Ross only had a few FMQs left as Conservative leader,
01:32so trying to get all of it out at once,
01:34Swinney's still got the chance with John Swinney.
01:37Quite interesting as well, the reaction.
01:39It was quite an angry reaction that he got back from the First Minister as well.
01:42I did overhear one of the Front Bench Ministers.
01:44I think it was Shona Robison saying, unbelievable as well,
01:47that the Conservatives are wanting to question the SNP on child poverty.
01:51Lorna Slater from the Scottish Greens,
01:53she also went in on free school meals and child poverty,
01:56again, accusing the Government of abandoning all Green policy
01:59as soon as the Greens were out of the room.
02:01Let's not forget that it was only four months ago
02:03that the Scottish Greens were part of the SNP Green Government
02:07and Lorna Slater herself as Government Minister.
02:09They are now no longer there and she says the SNP
02:13are getting rid of all the Green policies now that they are no longer there.
02:16So quite interesting debate there,
02:18the two different sides of how it's going.
02:21Rachel, on that, David Bowle, part of our politics team,
02:25he spoke to Lorna Slater, a head of FMQs,
02:28and she's pretty crystal clear, you can read that story
02:31at Scotsman.com as we speak, that the Greens will not be voting
02:35for the Budget when it comes to December.
02:38Now, we know that the SNP in the past used the Greens vote as well
02:44to have the numbers.
02:45They don't have the numbers without the Greens' support,
02:49which makes things a little bit sticky, a little bit tricky.
02:52But do you see the Greens budging at all on their position,
02:57given what was outlined this week?
03:00They're still pretty annoyed at how the Bute House agreement ended.
03:03So I can't see it getting better between now and the Budget
03:06on 4 December.
03:07There are plenty of Green policies that have now been either shelved
03:11or paused or watered down.
03:13So one being the free school meals, for example,
03:15free bus travel, particularly free bus travel for asylum seekers,
03:19the pledge to ban conversion therapy in Scotland.
03:22All of those have sort of been watered down or paused, basically,
03:26in this programme for government.
03:28And also if we look at the Budget for energy and net zero,
03:31I think it was about £23 million was cut from that department
03:35on Tuesday, and a further £23 million was also cut
03:38from active travel projects as well, another two things
03:41that the Scottish Greens have championed in the past year or so.
03:44So yes, they're very annoyed at all these things being cut
03:47and being paused.
03:48And when it comes to the arithmetic here in Parliament,
03:51they kind of need the Greens' support here.
03:54We can presume that Labour and the Conservatives will vote
03:56against the Budget.
03:58There's one Alba MSP, but unfortunately that's not enough
04:01to make a difference on either side.
04:03So you're then left with the Lib Dems and the Greens.
04:05If the Greens are not going to vote for the Budget,
04:08the SNP are then relying solely on the Lib Dems
04:10to get their Budget through.
04:12In the past, the Lib Dems have not backed the government
04:14on their budgetary announcements.
04:16So it's going to be very interesting to see exactly
04:18what happens there.
04:20There might have to be some political to-and-fro-ing
04:22between all the different parties, between now and the Budget
04:24at the start of December.
04:26Horse trading, it's like back to the good old days, Rachel.
04:29Just on the winter fuel payment, we know the UK government
04:34has effectively, is means testing it.
04:37We know that the Scottish Government have had to follow through
04:39and replicate that, even though seemingly they didn't want
04:42to take that step.
04:43Am I right in thinking that came up at FMQs today as well?
04:46Twice, actually, yes.
04:47Two different MSPs brought up the winter fuel payments
04:50when John's money was being questioned today.
04:53Quite interesting, I think it was Kenneth Gibson
04:55who brought this up.
04:56He was questioning why this money has been cut
04:59from winter fuel payments, and yet a similar amount
05:01of money has been gone into the Scotland office,
05:04and he was accusing the new Labour government in Westminster
05:07of undermining devolution by doing this.
05:09I'm pretty sure that's not the point.
05:11What's happened here, there's two different pots of money
05:14that can't really cross over there, so that's probably
05:16not what has happened here.
05:18Quite interesting, because it does play into the SNP's narrative
05:20of having Westminster undermining their decisions that are being
05:24made at Holyrood.
05:25But as you were saying, winter fuel payments are being devolved
05:27to Scotland this year.
05:29This is the first time that the Scottish Government
05:30is in charge of these payments.
05:32When Labour did announce this earlier in the summer,
05:35that they were wanting to mean test it because they had
05:37no money left, the Scottish Government immediately said
05:40we want to keep it universal, but straight away you can see
05:43the money just wasn't there for that.
05:45I think it's a case of both the free school meals
05:48and the winter fuel payments are both governments not having
05:52enough cash to go around, and so we're both having
05:54to make difficult decisions there.
05:56So quite interesting that both sides are blaming each other
05:59for each thing, but both are having to make decisions
06:01when it comes to policies such as this.
06:04Look, you can read all of our coverage around what was announced
06:07in the program for government, the shelving of the free school
06:11meals, including our analysis of what took place,
06:15as well as our coverage from First Minister's questions today
06:18and that exclusive interview with Lorna Slater about just how angry
06:22she and the Greens are about the policy decisions taken
06:26by the government this week.
06:28That's all at Scotsman.com.
06:29Follow us on Facebook, Ext and Instagram, and please go
06:33and support local journalists and buy a copy of a paper tomorrow
06:36for all the very latest in Scottish news.
06:39Rachel, thank you to you and thanks to all our viewers
06:42for joining us.