15/08/2011 Newsnight Scotland

the part of many politicians to say, make cuts to the police. Thank you

very much. Tonight on Newsnight Scotland: The spill from the Gannet

Alpha platform is the biggest in the North Sea for a decade, but are

Shell giving out enough information on what's going on? The Environment

secretary tells us that the Scottish Government was only told

two days after it happened. And, 30 years ago Glasgow granted Nelson

Mandela the freedom of the city - the first place in the world to do

so. We'll have a personal look back at the campaign. Good evening.

Shell has confirmed that more than 200 tonnes of oil have spilled into

the North Sea after a leak at one of its platforms off the Aberdeen

coast. It's one of the biggest spills in a decade. Shell says it

has brought the leak under control, but conservationists say they're

hugely concerned about how long it has taken to get information about

the slick. Catriona Renton reports. Hundreds of tons of oil may be

gushing forth, but information about this or oil spill is only

being released slowly. On Friday news was made public. There was a

leak in a flow line leading to the Gannet Alpha all platform, 130

miles off Aberdeen. We now know that it started on Wednesday. Shell,

who operate the oil rig, say that the total oil spilled so far is

around 216 tons, or 1300 barrels of oil. The sea's surface area

affected has been some 90 miles by 2.5 miles. And this is the second

leak at the platform in just over two years. It is one of the worst

oil spills in UK waters for more than a decade. These pictures were

released this evening by a Muddy and Scotland. And the Department of

Energy and Climate Change says several hundred tons of light crude

oil could be spilled. They say that in the context of the UK

continental shelf, this spill is substantial, but it is not

anticipated that oil will reach the shore, and it is expected that it

will be dispersed naturally. But conservation groups are concerned

about how difficult it has been to gain accurate information. The have

to look carefully at how communication takes place and how

transparent and honest people are at the earliest possible stage

because that gives you time to get everything in place. When you're

trying to piece it together in retrospect, it does not blow very

well, and that is the major lesson to be learned. Trawling for Royle

does not come without risks. Part of the concern here is that the

spill is happening in the well- established oil fields of the North

Sea. No one has comparing this incident to the Gulf of Mexico, but

the images of that crisis in April 2010, the World's worst oil spill

in history, are striking. Shell has described began it up a leak as

insignificant but it is still much larger than anything experienced

here and recent times. At a oil spills that have been recorded in

the past have been small, so this one is clearly much bigger, but

that does not mean to say that it will have much more impact because

it is bigger. You have to remember, oil disperses naturally in the

marine environment, and usually very quickly. To make, work is

continuing to stop the leak. Shell echoes the view from Oil and Gas UK

that it expects the oil will disperse naturally. It says that

high wind and waves of other the Kent have led to a substantial

reduction in the size of the oil slick, but it remains to be seen

what the long-term environmental effects will be. No-one from Shell

was available to answer questions about the North Sea's biggest oil

leak in a decade. The trade body, Oil and Gas UK, were similarly

otherwise engaged, as was a minister from the UK government's

energy department. But earlier I spoke to the Scottish Government's

Environment Secretary, Richard Lochhead. I asked him to bring us

up to date with the situation. Shell now have diver's and vehicles

trying to stop the leak. And we ought to progress as soon as

possible and in terms of what has been leaked, the size is about 217

barrels which is significant in terms of the North Sea but when

hundreds of thousands of barrels have been leaked in major incidents

around the world, hopefully it is not going to cause much major

damage to wildlife and anything else. It was Friday night before

the public were told. When were the Scottish government told? Ministers

found out on Friday as well and died early Saturday divorced

Minister was on the phone to the head of UK operations for Shell, to

make sure that ever operations team would be set up for the Scottish

government in Aberdeen. Our interest is to make sure that we

protect the marine environment, because all the other issues

involved are reserved to the UK government in London. Did you ask

why there was such a delay between the League capping on Wednesday and

Scottish ministers been told on Friday? -- the leak happening.

companies can be more open and transparent, but we have to

understand the conditions they were operating in. We were initially

told this was a minor incident. But when the aircraft took to the skies

and look to the oil Sheehan, and information was monitored from the

oil company, it became clear that this was more than a minor incident,

but quite a substantial leak, albeit in the context of what has

happened in the rest of the world, it is not much evidence that damage

has been caused and Olay the wind and waves will disperse the ongoing

leak. -- hopefully. Are you confident that the Scottish

government will discover what caused this leak? The UK government

offices responsible for offshore pollution set in and set up an

operations room in consensus with the oil company, Shell, in Aberdeen

and they take over, and it is up to the individual who runs that on

behalf of the UK Secretary of State to make sure that Shell is doing at

the end has to do to stop this week. -- everything it has to do. Then it

reports to the UK government and the Scottish government, because we

are very concerned about what is happening and we want to be part of

that investigation. You have talked about this leap been significant.

How significant will it be in terms of Ireland -- environmental damage?

That is why the Scottish government is taking such a close interest

because of the damage to the marine environment. We are speaking about

a leaked far out at sea. This league has been slowed down in

terms of the leak from a pipe. That means it is more likely to be

disbursed by the North Sea. The evidence is that there is no

potential damage to marine wildlife. There is very little money and

wildlife known about in the area well as league has a cup. -- marine

wildlife. Ornithologists are checking the bird population to see

if there is any there, and we are in contact with the RSPB. Is it

significant that nobody from the company has been available to be

interviewed about their handling of this? I have encouraged Shell to be

as open and transparent as possible, because that is what the public

expect, we want the Scottish public to be kept up-to-date. But Shell

should be open and transparent, because people want to know and

trust that the right thing is happening and that is why we should

be hearing from them as often as possible and we would encourage

them to be as open and transparent as possible. We in the Scottish

government are being open and transparent. Listening to that is

the Sunday Herald's Environment Editor, Rob Edwards, who joins me

now. How concerned should we be about this leak? We should be very

concerned. It bears all the hallmarks of what has happened in

the past when industries have major problems - they did not tell us

immediately. When they do tell us, they played down and then it

emerges as a much bigger problem and, that looks like the pattern

here. The Scottish government, along with the rest of us, did not

know about it until two days after it happened, and only now, five

days after it happened, how we had any hard information from Shell

about what happened, and that is more alarming than anything we have

had before. A is it possible that Shell did not have that

information? I don't know about that but it did the amazing if they

did not know more about it and they actually told us. What is

disturbing to me is that not only has a lot of oil been leaked but it

is still leaking. According to Shell, one ton each they are still

coming out and they are still trying to plug it. The history of

these things, with the experience of BP and the Gulf of Mexico is

that they tend to downplay them and then the truth comes out and that

The North Sea is a vast body of water, the amount of oil which has

leaked into it is significant according to Shell, but it's not

all that significant, is it? This isn't major in comparison to other

leaks in other parts of the world. It's not as bad as a major oil leak

next to a coastline. But I was a little surprised to hear the

minister saying that this is an area where there's no marine life.

I somewhat doubt that. I'm sure there is some marine life. We know

oil is damaging to marine life. We're at the stage where Shell and

the Government are reassuring us it's going to be, but we don't

actually know what the damage will be to wildlife. But we know that

oil can be damaging. Maybe it will be dispersed and maybe there won't

be a major problem, but it would provide more comfort to the public

if there was more information about what the threat is and what it's

likely to be. Does the fact that it's getting more difficult to get

access to some of the oil reserves in the North Sea make incidents

like this more likely in the future? Yes, I think it does. I

mean, oil is becoming more and more expensive to extract because it's

running out. Therefore, oil companies, including Shell, are

going to deeper and more dangerous places like the Arctic to find oil.

And obviously, the deeper and more dangerous places they go to the

risk of an accident increases. It's not, you know, this kind of

experience isn't encouraging. There's a wider issue behind that

which is whether we should be drilling more oil in the first

place, because we know that every drop of oil we take out of the sea

will be burnt and will worsen the climate change crisis that the

world is heading towards. Edwards, thank you very much for

joining us this evening. 30 years ago Glasgow City Council

granted Nelson Mandela the freedom of the city. It was the first city

to do so. In 1981, when Mandela was still in jail, convicted of

terrorism, it was far from uncontroversial. Glasgow continued

to be a centre of anti-apartheid campaigns throughout the 1980s.

David Pratt, now foreign editor of the Sunday Harold was involved in

those campaigns. (the Sunday herald) We asked him to look back.

It's a long way from the dank confines of a jail to the streets

of Glasgow city centre, but in 1993, the world's most famous political

prisoner, Nelson Mandela made that very journey. Mandela's long walk

to liberty after more than 27 years of incarceration and his arrival in

Glasgow in 1993 to collect his freedom of the city honour has long

since entered the annuls of political folklore.

I have Cherished the idea of a democratic and free society in

which all persons live together in harmony and with equal

opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve,

but if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. These

days as Glasgow commemorates the 3078 anniversary of Mandela

receiving that award, it's something the city is rightly proud

of and looking back to 1981, when it was first destowed on him, would

seem only natural for a city, then so identifyibly social in its

leanings. 25 years ago on busy Friday afternoons like this, I used

to come to this place. I was then a young journalist and activist with

the anti-apartheid movement. On those afternoons I would join other

activists outside what was then the South African consulate in the

building behind me. This place was then known as St George's place.

Later, it became known as Nelson But as I know only too well, from

my days as an activist, Mandela's freedom of the city was a hard-won

battle that had its heroes andville ans both close to home and far

overseas. It was when the Lord Provost held a controversial lunch

for the South African minister, that the level of activism in

Scotland hotted up. David hodge's performance with South Africa was

one great embarrassment to the Labour group. That was one reason

why we obliged him to leave. He simply didn't see the connection

between standing up for gas weedgeians rights and standing up

for oppressed South Africans. We were able to set the record

straight. That was one of the motivating factors. He is an

individual. We are the people who Glasgow Labour group was becoming

increasingly embroiled in the battle against apartheid, the real

front line remained the movement's organisation of rallies, concerts,

demonstrations and a weekly picket at the South African consulate.

started with the freedom of the city. Glasgow being the first city

in the world to do so in 1981. After that, we led the way in many

ways. We saw this as a focus of course, with South African

consulate being here. So, the pickets had a real focus. People

got to know that the consulate was there, represented the apartheid

regime in Glasgow. There was more to this political activity than

just public, mainstream demonstrations and rallies. There

was also a thriving covert movement. Orderary Scots acted as couriers,

procured documents, established safe houses in Glasgow for those in

exile and were even involved with arms smug tolling the ANC in South

I think quite heroic young people and some older people, who wents in

and out of South Africa delivering documentation, delivering money.

These were Scots? These were Scots, but from Britain generally. Some

who took part in overland safari delivering weapons. That was, they

were literally sitting on a keg of dynamite, so to speak, and they

played a role which showed the essential humanism of human beings

who are going to help others. wasn't in the same as working

underground in South Africa, but we were working with people who were

working underground and trying to assist them and sometimes of course,

it's easier for a white to do By 1986 when St George's place,

home to the South African consulate was renamed Nelson Mandela place,

Glasgow's reputation as a bastion of anti-apartheid activity was well

and truly established. It was a move, however, that wasn't to

everyone's liking. Among the most vociferous opponents were the

Conservative group, who had consistently tried to block the

city's association with the ANC and indeed so Nelson Mandela was

nothing more than a terrorist. was convicted of planning to carry

out a series of explosions in public transport which would have

resulted in very many innocent civilians being killed. Clearly

that was a major issue. It was a wet and windy day in Glasgow,

Saturday, 9th October 1993, when Nelson Mandela finally came in

person to receive his apart of free of the city. I will always look

back to this occasion with fond memories, because I now have had

the opportunity to thank directly the men and women who have taken

interest in events taking place 6,000 miles away. It was a moment

Glasgow should always be proud of, a moment when most Scots, to their

credit, decided to take a stand and fight for something they

instinctively knew to be right. It Let's have a look at the