Political Editor Alistair Grant picks out some of the top lines after Chancellor Rachel Reeves spoke to journalists during a visit to Rosyth.
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00:00Hello, I'm Alistair Grant, the Political Editor of The Scotsman, and I'm here in
00:03Rosyth, where Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been visiting the Babcock shipyard, which
00:09you can just see behind me there, where she was announcing a £2bn increase in UK export
00:14finance lending capacity. But journalists were given a short opportunity to ask the
00:18Chancellor about other topics as well. There's obviously plenty going on that journalists
00:22would be interested in hearing from the Chancellor on. She was asked about the expected welfare
00:26cuts that are coming up in the Spring Statement. Very reluctant to go into the detail there.
00:30But I think from a Scottish point of view, the two most interesting topics that she answered
00:35questions on were the Trident nuclear deterrent and the crisis currently facing Dundee University.
00:41So on Trident, I actually asked the Chancellor about the SNP's long-standing opposition
00:47to the Trident nuclear deterrent. The SNP doesn't support the renewal of Trident, wants
00:53it to be gone from the Clyde. But Rachel Reeves very much saying she strongly disagrees
00:57with this position. She was saying that the world has changed before our eyes in the last
01:01few months. And from her point of view, if anything, the Trident nuclear deterrent is
01:05more significant now than it has been for a long time. So very much criticising the
01:10SNP's policy on this. And worth bearing in mind that First Minister John Swinney has
01:14been asked about this a few times recently, and he's been very much defending the SNP's
01:18position. He says that the nuclear weapons are immoral and that they're not helping global
01:25safety. But on Dundee University, Rachel Reeves was asked about the cash crisis the university
01:32has been facing. It's obviously been in the headlines a lot recently. It's announced plans
01:36to cut 632 jobs as it bids to plug a £35 million deficit. Rachel Reeves was saying
01:43that these issues are, in her words, quite specific to Dundee University. But she was
01:47also saying that the Scottish Government needs to work with universities across Scotland
01:51to ensure that this is a one-off.