The Scotsman Politics Show: FMQs September 21 2023
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's Politics Show.
00:09 We're doing a round of First Minister's Questions.
00:12 My name is Neil Milley, I'm Head of News at Scotsman
00:15 and I'm joined by Deputy Political Editor, Connor Matchett.
00:19 Connor, we had Shona Robison standing in
00:22 and probably no surprise that climate led things.
00:26 - Absolutely, so as you mentioned,
00:28 Deputy First Minister Shona Robison was stood in
00:31 for Humza Yousaf who is still in New York for Climate Week.
00:36 He's been over there since Sunday,
00:38 basically meeting world leaders
00:40 and talking about all things climate,
00:42 which has come at quite a useful time
00:44 for the Scottish government,
00:45 given Rishi Sunak's announcement yesterday
00:47 that he's rowing back on a lot of net zero policies,
00:50 including the deadline for petrol cars
00:52 to be phased out, for example.
00:54 Potentially slightly surprising,
00:57 potentially slightly not.
00:58 Douglas Ross led on this,
00:59 but from a perspective of the North Sea oil and gas
01:04 rather than the broader net zero targets,
01:07 he basically accused Humza Yousaf
01:09 and the Scottish government of having turned south
01:11 on Scotland's oil and gas industry.
01:13 And Shona Robison responded in kind saying,
01:16 no one's given up on oil and gas in Scotland
01:19 and we just need to have a just transition.
01:22 It's the sort of rhetoric we've heard ad nauseum,
01:25 to be honest, between the two parties,
01:27 particularly given the background
01:28 of the general election up in the Northeast.
01:31 - Conor, talking about rhetoric
01:33 and talking about general elections
01:34 that we know are coming next year,
01:36 was this any sort of preview of what we can expect?
01:39 - It was pretty much a preview from both sides.
01:41 I mean, you had, as I mentioned,
01:43 Douglas Ross going in on North Sea oil and gas.
01:46 I think at one point he said that the SNP slogans
01:49 changed from not Scotland's oil to it's just stock oil,
01:52 obviously a reference to the campaign group,
01:55 which has caused many issues down south
01:57 and has caused a bit of a rupture
01:59 within the politics in England.
02:00 And I think as well,
02:02 if you look at what Anna Sara was going on,
02:04 he was focusing very, very hard
02:06 on basically matching two separate things
02:11 in the minds of voters,
02:12 one being SNP alleged incompetence
02:15 and the other being the fact that taxes might go up
02:17 in terms of council taxes
02:19 or taxes might go up in terms of progressive taxation
02:22 for those earning a little bit more.
02:24 And he was going, you know,
02:25 that people in a cost of living crisis
02:27 should not be paying for SNP failure.
02:30 It's that kind of classic Scottish Labour line
02:32 that we've come to know
02:33 and basically going to be what's going to be
02:36 on all of their leaflets come May
02:38 or whenever the general election next year is.
02:41 And I think that's basically
02:42 what this first minister's questions was about.
02:45 Shona Robison, to be fair to her, responded in kind.
02:49 You know, she attacked the Tories
02:50 for being anti-climate change
02:52 and anti-climate change targets,
02:53 basically saying that this made it harder
02:55 for Scotland to meet their own targets,
02:58 something that I think we'll hear developed
03:00 as an SNP attack line against the Conservatives
03:02 when we go forward.
03:03 But she also attacked Keir Starmer,
03:06 which is something we're hearing more and more of
03:08 from the SNP.
03:09 They think that Keir Starmer
03:11 does not have a particular good profile in Scotland,
03:13 that that is a weak link for Labour
03:15 and they are going to go on and on and on
03:17 about how Anas Sarwar is in the pocket of Keir Starmer.
03:21 - I wanna ask you shortly about Shona Robison
03:24 and how she performed,
03:25 but do you think this council text
03:26 is cutting through the fact that
03:28 those in the top bands could potentially be charged more?
03:32 - I think the fundamental fact of the matter
03:34 is that people who tend to have more money,
03:36 people who tend to have property
03:37 and people who tend to care about
03:40 what comes out of their pocket tend to be richer.
03:43 And I think they also tend to vote.
03:45 And I think that's what Labour are targeting.
03:47 They're targeting that middle-class Scotland
03:49 who is aspirational, who own property
03:52 or wish to own property.
03:54 Potentially they own a big house in Morningside in Edinburgh
03:58 or somewhere in Glasgow or in another central belt place
04:02 where maybe they've paid a lot of money for it
04:05 and that it sits in those higher bands of council tax.
04:07 They might not actually earn that much money
04:10 given the difference between property value
04:13 and what actual income is
04:16 compared to when their first council tax plans
04:18 were placed in 1994.
04:20 And they might well be your teachers,
04:23 your council workers, et cetera,
04:24 and they'll be being asked to pay more.
04:27 I think Anasar firmly believes this is cutting through.
04:30 And in general, ahead of an election year,
04:33 it's pretty dodgy ground for any political party
04:36 to be continually referring to putting taxes up.
04:39 And I think that's what he's banking on.
04:41 - And Conor, just lastly, summarise quickly,
04:44 how did Shona do?
04:46 - I think for her first time
04:47 since she became Deputy First Minister,
04:49 she did pretty well.
04:50 Lots of people have different views
04:53 on how effective the Deputy First Minister
04:55 is in the chamber.
04:57 I think her real test is gonna come
04:59 when she delivers the budget in December.
05:01 But she did pretty well.
05:03 She was given even, I should say,
05:06 an open goal by Douglas Ross on net zero.
05:08 Everyone knew that was gonna come up in some manner.
05:12 And she slammed that into the back of the net.
05:14 And then again, I'm not convinced
05:16 that Anasar went on the strongest ground either today,
05:19 which probably helped her out.
05:21 So overall, a pass mark, maybe a seven or eight out of 10,
05:25 certainly wasn't the vintage FMQs,
05:26 but then again, it hasn't been for many, many months.
05:29 - Conor, thanks for joining us.
05:31 You can read all the latest politics coverage,
05:34 including what comes out of the FMQs today at sportsman.com.
05:38 Just follow the politics tab
05:40 and go and buy a copy of the paper tomorrow.
05:44 - Thanks very much.
05:45 (upbeat music)
05:49 (upbeat music)