The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday April 09 2025 #Politics
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Wednesday.
00:05My name's Dale Miller, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our Deputy
00:09Political Editor, David Boll.
00:12And David, I've got a couple of stories that I want to talk through with you today, but
00:17firstly the front page of today's Scotsman, which leads on finances unsustainable.
00:24This is the Scottish Government as the number of elderly increases research or analysis
00:31effectively put together by the Scottish Fiscal Commission, which has said that the budget
00:39black hole or the extra deficit could be as much as $14 to $16 billion under a worst case
00:45scenario as the number of elderly are set to increase more here in Scotland than south
00:51of the border, and that is due to issues around the number of babies being born and pressure
00:58around migration as well.
00:59So it's a pretty fascinating analysis from the Commission.
01:04There is a best case scenario where the Scottish Government could end up with more money, but
01:09that seems pretty unlikely, the Commission says, based on recent trends of where things
01:15are heading.
01:15So yet another financial headache for the Scottish Government to deal with.
01:20David, you've also written about some new figures around the climate that were out, and at a time
01:28where we're trying to get our emissions down or our carbon footprint down, it didn't make
01:32for great reading for the Scottish Government.
01:35No, I mean, it's an analysis that's come out yesterday, which was for 2021.
01:41So it does feel like a long time in the past, but these things take a while for the experts
01:45to kind of dig into.
01:46But it showed that basically our carbon footprint jumped by almost 15% as we kind of lifted that
01:52lockdown.
01:53And it wasn't just compared to the year previous, where obviously we weren't going about using
01:59cars and transport and using up a lot of emissions, but it was the highest level since
02:042015.
02:05And it's just another blow to the kind of the Scottish Government's climate credentials.
02:09We've seen in recent weeks their legal climate targets for 2030 being scrapped.
02:18They don't have a climate change plan at the moment.
02:20They've delayed it a year to kind of embed these new sort of methods of targets.
02:25So they're working off a very old document.
02:28We saw last week Patrick Harvey's kind of controversial plans that would have seen Scots have to be
02:35scrapped their boilers by certain points.
02:37That's been done away with in place of more government targets.
02:42And they've missed sort of the majority of their last sort of annual targets in reducing
02:47emissions.
02:48So it's just another sort of blow.
02:50And it basically proves that that cut during the pandemic that Michael Matheson, who was the
02:57net zero secretary at the time, very much said would be sort of a culture change in the
03:02start of something different.
03:03And this kind of proves that it's all been lost and it's been kind of a waste opportunity
03:08as some of the charities reaction to this yesterday and a bit more frustration, really, given that
03:13John Swinney has made it one of his core priorities to tackle the climate crisis, that more action
03:19hasn't happened at the scale required.
03:21David, it is remarkable about how much has gone back to normal since the pandemic and the
03:27way I think we go about life.
03:30That is probably a conversation for another day.
03:32But putting your analytical hat on without incentives for homeowners to actually move to
03:39cleaner energy initiatives that will then bring the carbon footprint down.
03:44How do you see the Scottish government ever meeting some of these targets?
03:49Well, the renewable heating targets for boilers and things are extremely difficult to meet
03:55anyway.
03:56There's been a lack of progress on installing heat pumps and so forth in Scotland.
04:02I mean, they have scaled up, but not to the extent that was promised.
04:06It's worth saying that Scotland does have kind of some of the most generous grants and loans
04:11in the UK for heat pumps.
04:14But without that incentive that people need to do it, particularly there were sort of trigger
04:18points put in about when people were selling their house or a new tenancy was brought in
04:23that they would have to meet these new standards.
04:26That's kind of been done away with.
04:28So the onus is very much on the Scottish government to deliver it targets.
04:32And without funding, again, this whole scheme to decarbonise heat was estimated at $33 billion.
04:40And this was before we've had, obviously, the rise of inflation.
04:43And who knows where that's going to head now?
04:45So it is likely to be substantially more.
04:48And that money isn't coming from government.
04:50So without the incentives, it's going to be very difficult for Scotland to meet these clean
04:55heat targets.
04:56And, David, just separately to that, you've written on another subject, Douglas Ross, former
05:02Scottish Tories leader.
05:05A big initiative, one that he spoke a lot about, was his right to recovery bill.
05:09Now, I know that was to help particularly with the drugs deaths crisis, and it came out of
05:16the back of concern of just how high the ongoing drug deaths rate was.
05:22Douglas Ross is no longer heading up the Tories party, but that legislation is still sort of
05:29making its way through Holyrood in the various stages.
05:33But there's some criticism around it and whether it will actually achieve what it's set out to.
05:38Yeah.
05:38So it's his members bill on sort of a right to recovery for those addicted to alcohol harm
05:43and drug harm.
05:44And I think a lot of the groups that have responded to this and raised concerns understand that
05:51he's coming from a good place and they're all kind of on the same page about what they
05:54want to achieve.
05:56But they're worried his members bills is quite narrow in the fact that it would instill a
06:02right to recovery for those that are sort of clinically addicted, which actually makes
06:07up quite a small proportion of people who are sort of dependent on substance abuse.
06:12And there are concerns that it would have unintended consequences to those people.
06:17They would be kind of deprioritized in some of the treatment.
06:20And also the fact to embed a right to treatment without the funding or the actual capacity there
06:27is maybe not going to be that helpful.
06:29And it kind of stigmatizes some of the people that are needing that support.
06:34But obviously it comes, as you said, at a time when Scotland is still the drugs death
06:38capital of Europe.
06:39We've got the highest alcohol deaths in, I think it's 15 years.
06:43So I think there's some good intention there from Douglas Ross.
06:47But I think some of the medical experts and groups are a bit concerned about how this would
06:51be implemented and maybe some of the unintended consequences.
06:55And he'll need a lot of support from other parties, including probably the Scottish Government
07:00to get this member's bill through.
07:02So it's maybe a bit unlikely that it will at this stage.
07:06We don't know.
07:07He said he's open to lots of amendments and he'll look at them fairly to see if he can
07:12get this through.
07:12I think he wants it just to be delivered in the best way possible or at all, to be honest.
07:17So I think he's open to conversations with anyone who's got concerns about it.
07:21You can read both those stories at scotsman.com.
07:25If you ever can't find our political coverage, there is a politics tab in the navigation bar
07:30at the top of the site where you'll read some of David's work and that from his colleagues
07:36across Westminster and Holyrood as well.
07:39Please follow us on all social media channels and pick up a copy of the paper tomorrow where
07:44we'll have all the latest on tariffs.
07:46It continues with global tariffs coming into effect against countries like China from the
07:52US, China facing a tariff of some 104%.
07:56You'll find out what the reaction is from the markets and political leaders to that in tomorrow's
08:02Scotsman.
08:03Thanks to you, David.
08:04Thanks to everyone else for joining us.