The Scotsman Bulletin Tuesday February 25 2025 #Politics
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00:00Hello, and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Tuesday.
00:05My name's Dale Miller.
00:06I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman, and I'm joined by Deputy Political Editor David Boll.
00:12David, it's going to be another big week in politics.
00:15We're well into it already, and I want to talk about the front page of today's Scotsman firstly.
00:21Lead on exclusive from yourself, demand for night courts to clear criminal justice backlog.
00:28Also, there's a compelling picture there.
00:30Three years on was the anniversary yesterday of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
00:36Quite incredible that three years have passed since the start of the conflict.
00:40Are we any closer to the end?
00:42We may know come Thursday, Friday, once the meeting between Keir Starmer and Donald Trump has taken place.
00:50David, talk us through this case story.
00:54I should mention we ran the Justice Denied series throughout last week, was a compelling package from Martin McLaughlin.
01:02And funnily enough, this sort of fell coming out the back end of that series as part of the Labor Conference.
01:07Can you talk to us about who thinks night courts are the way ahead?
01:12Yeah, so as you mentioned, that series kind of pointed out a lot of the problems we've got in the justice system at the moment.
01:18There's sort of 22,000 criminal trials just kind of waiting to happen.
01:22That's kind of been cut in half since Covid, so it is getting better, but obviously is a mountain to climb.
01:28And this proposal has come from the Scottish Police Federation, who are basically a union for rank and file police officers in Scotland,
01:35who are kind of asking for the hours of the court to be looked at.
01:40They essentially run nine to five, not all the time.
01:42They sometimes sit at different times, but generally they operate within nine to five.
01:48And you look at that from a policing point of view, police operate 24-7, as do criminals, as they point out.
01:54So there's just they're basically pointing out.
01:56And I've got a point here that if you want to clear the backlog, it's never going to get eradicated without expanding the hours of the court.
02:04But that's obviously not as simple as that. The Law Society of Scotland points out there's simply just not enough lawyers to do it.
02:10It just doesn't quite match up. And a lot of funding would be needed to expand that part of the economy, essentially.
02:17But it is a genuine idea that it would alleviate the backlog if the courts could run for longer.
02:22There'd be more time to see trials.
02:25But obviously the government and the Scottish Court and Tribunal Service would have to overhaul a lot of services and funding for that to become a reality.
02:34David, I wonder whether overtime payments come into working into the evening at all.
02:39It'll be an interesting debate about whether it would cost a lot more to actually do it that way as well.
02:45Away from that, and you can read that full story at scottsman.com from David.
02:50Stage three of the budget, that feels like the budget's been dragging on for a couple of months.
02:57It has, but it's the final vote today for the budget.
03:01Tell us what are we expecting and can you please remind those tuning in about exactly what the passing of the budget means in terms of funds and where they're going?
03:11Yeah, so you're right. It does feel like the budget is dragging on this year.
03:15Usually we have a lot of drama up to the first stage of the budget where we're not really sure if it's going to pass,
03:19given the Scottish government generally has been in a minority government for most of its stint in power.
03:26Obviously, Labour deflated that by telling us that they were going to abstain, which essentially saw it pass.
03:32It was a kind of quite good move from Labour to cool the pressure off them and the Greens and the Lib Dems both supporting it.
03:38So actually, John Swinney, to his credit, has done a lot in bringing this consensus that he's talked about forward.
03:44You could argue and the SNP are arguing that Labour aren't backing the budget,
03:48but they're abstaining in their eyes to allow the extra funding that the Labour government has given the Holyrood to be used.
03:57So it's just the Tories on their own really opposing the budget.
04:02But like you said, it will release a lot of funding in the next financial year, particularly for the NHS,
04:06which has already been put at the forefront of this 2026 Holyrood election.
04:11Labour and the SNP are going to squabble over the NHS leading up to that.
04:15They've both got big pledges. The SNP's sort of delayed appointments pledge is now being reset for March 2026.
04:23So that is John Swinney putting his government's record on the line, really.
04:28And this budget is the first part of that. There's extra funding to help those appointments basically happen.
04:35And they'll have to follow through on this.
04:37There's lots of other things. House building, which got a cut before previously, has kind of been restored.
04:43There's a big argument over arts funding that we've covered extensively in the Scotsman.
04:47That's kind of been restored to an extent. So it's a good budget for the SNP in lots of ways.
04:53There's still people who are not happy with a lot of it. The Greens and Lib Dems feel they've got concessions,
04:58like the Greens got free school meals extended and a bus trial.
05:04And the Lib Dems are quite happy with extra funding for councils and some more mental health support.
05:09Again, that has already been cut. So it is quite a lot of funding to be released.
05:14The SNP kind of need this as a good thing to show that they're kind of good leaders and a good governance.
05:21And the next year, there'll be a lot of pressure on them to actually deliver on some of this funding.
05:26David, within this, there was a certain chunk of funding for Scottish councils.
05:32Now, we know that the vote takes place today against the backdrop of councils having already announced and agreed some of the council tax rises.
05:41We know Edinburgh is 8 per cent. We know the likes of Scottish Borders are 10 per cent.
05:47And we're hearing Falkirk Council could be the highest at 13.7 per cent agreed next week.
05:54Can I ask you, do you think those council rises are going to be the things that people remember when they pick up and start paying their bills over the next couple of months?
06:05And is it damaging for the SNP and the Scottish government at all that, you know, despite the success we're getting through this budget, we're seeing councils raising council tax by so much?
06:17Yeah, I mean, council tax is broken and the SNP has pledged to fix this since 2007.
06:24And they failed to bring forward any sort of concrete proposals.
06:28We're not going to get those after the election now. Shona Robson very much saying we need to build a political consensus.
06:33So whoever is in charge in 2026 has a plan ready to go that that will get through Holyrood.
06:39But it's easier said than done. Yeah, I think the council tax rises will be what people remember.
06:44It will hit them. We've had council tax freezes, which are controversial from a local government point of view because it starves them of funding.
06:52The Scottish government have insisted it has been fully funded, but it's not really been the case, especially if you ask the councils.
07:00And many are making up for that freeze last year, this year, by kind of, as you said, pointing to those quite big rises.
07:08And with kind of income tax from the Scottish government being kind of frozen, essentially,
07:12this will be one of the big, if only, taxes that people will feel other than some of the ones announced by the UK government.
07:20And yeah, council tax needs to be reformed and there will be winners and losers, which is the kind of problem at the moment.
07:26But at the moment, it does feel like everyone's kind of losing if your council tax is going up by sort of 10 percent in some places.
07:33So Shona Robson did hand councils extra funding last week.
07:38In fact, it will be agreed in the stage three debate today to partly offset the national insurance contribution rise from the UK government.
07:46It's hit the public sector in Scotland quite hard.
07:49We have a proportionally bigger public sector than England.
07:52So the Barnett formula that we hear about funding coming doesn't really help Scotland, that we end up being a bit shortchanged.
08:00So there's an extra one hundred and forty four million for councils.
08:02And Shona Robson insisted that should help stop these sort of inflation busting rises.
08:08But it clearly isn't the case if you ask councils and they feel they need to hike it up.
08:14But it will upset a lot of people.
08:17David, I'm curious, without that extra money, how much council tax may have gone up at some of the authorities across the country.
08:24You can read all the latest across what we've spoken about, including David's Night Court exclusive at Scotsman.com.
08:32Please follow us on all your social media channels throughout the day, including Facebook and X.
08:38And pick up a copy of the paper tomorrow when we will have all the latest on Ukraine and more developments across both Scottish and UK politics.
08:48Thanks to you, David. Thanks, everyone else, for tuning in.