:00:14. > :00:17.this world emerges. Thank you very On tonight's programme: the
:00:17. > :00:21.government adds some flesh to its plans for a single police force and
:00:21. > :00:25.single fire service for Scotland, launching a consultation to decide
:00:25. > :00:31.the finer points. So, what do we know so far about it, how it will
:00:31. > :00:36.work, how much it will save, and, critically, when? Also tonight, the
:00:36. > :00:39.latest attempt to heal one of the deepest faultlines in cross-border
:00:39. > :00:44.politics: the West Lothian Question. The UK government has been spurred,
:00:44. > :00:48.or bounced into announcing a commission.
:00:48. > :00:52.Good evening. Policing has been one of the key aspects of milk policy
:00:52. > :00:56.since devolution in 1999 with force numbers, crime levels, knife-
:00:56. > :00:59.carrying and booze culture, all emerging as points of controversy.
:01:00. > :01:03.Today, the justice secretary laid out his plans for the latest
:01:03. > :01:07.initiative, a unified police force and a single fire service for
:01:07. > :01:09.Scotland. Although It still requires some
:01:09. > :01:14.detective work to uncover all the details.
:01:14. > :01:23.In a moment, we'll ask Kenny MacAskill why we need this reform,
:01:23. > :01:27.but first here's Derek Bateman. Glasgow lace claim to be the oldest
:01:27. > :01:31.police service, older even than the metropolitan force which said it
:01:31. > :01:34.was the original. But on a visit to the Glasgow police museum, it
:01:34. > :01:39.quickly becomes clear that reform has been a constant throughout the
:01:39. > :01:43.long history of policing. Every old borough had its own force
:01:43. > :01:48.with different rules and pay scales. Even the smallest towns and islands
:01:48. > :01:50.had their own. They followed local council boundaries up to
:01:50. > :01:53.regionalisation in the 1970s where they've stayed, and it's there in
:01:53. > :01:58.local authorities where they most want to retain control. Yet the
:01:58. > :02:02.move to a national force after the creation of the national parliament,
:02:02. > :02:09.continues a pattern. The reforms I'm setting out today give us the
:02:09. > :02:13.best possible chance of protecting what we value the most in keeping
:02:13. > :02:20.Scotland safe and strong. Yes, this reform is taken against the
:02:20. > :02:25.backdrop of those Westminster cuts, but it's also the right thing to do.
:02:25. > :02:28.Kenny MacAskill proposes a single police and fire service. It will
:02:28. > :02:33.save �1.9 billion over 15 years through back office redundancies.
:02:33. > :02:37.There will be new supervisory bodies. Local commanders will have
:02:37. > :02:40.decision-making powers, and there will be an eight-week consultation.
:02:40. > :02:44.There are as many questions about a single police force as there are in
:02:44. > :02:51.the average murder inquiry, including will the management
:02:51. > :02:54.structure make any difference at all to those being policed?
:02:54. > :02:58.When people phone up the police, they want you to turn up and do the
:02:58. > :03:02.right thing, and they want to feel they're safe. Who the Chief
:03:02. > :03:07.Constable is or what the other bits and pieces is about strategic
:03:07. > :03:12.direction and governance and stuff, I think really at the end of the
:03:12. > :03:16.day, it is not a big difference. I think locally people want to know
:03:16. > :03:20.who their local community cop is. As for accountability, there
:03:20. > :03:24.appears to be a logical train of command. If you had 32 policing
:03:24. > :03:29.divisions to go with the 32 local authorities, then you would have a
:03:29. > :03:32.local area team that involved a chief executive, a leader of the
:03:32. > :03:36.council, a director of education, a divisional commander for policing,
:03:36. > :03:43.and so that group collectively could work out what it was they
:03:43. > :03:46.needed to do. This is a a format followed elsewhere. Most countries
:03:46. > :03:51.have national police forces of some kind, particularly the ones we
:03:51. > :03:55.would tend to align with in the Scandinavian countries, and we have
:03:55. > :04:01.Sweden and Denmark, for instance, have a national police force since
:04:01. > :04:05.the 1950s. We seem to dhir them for their, the
:04:05. > :04:09.way they run their countries, and it doesn't seem to have been a
:04:09. > :04:14.problem there. Stolen Ford Escort. But if this
:04:14. > :04:19.reform is to save money, will it? Inevitably, when you reorganise,
:04:19. > :04:23.you incur costs. You have to do everything from changing the logos
:04:23. > :04:26.on vehicles, to changing headed paper, to changing a variety of
:04:26. > :04:31.systems. All of the figures available show there will be costs
:04:31. > :04:32.incurred, but the savings within two or three years should come
:04:32. > :04:38.through. Then there's the issue of
:04:38. > :04:40.leadership. A single single powerful chief brings to mind the
:04:40. > :04:45.Metropolitan Police commissioner, an appointment which is always in
:04:45. > :04:48.part political. All chief officer appointments of
:04:48. > :04:52.police chiefs everywhere are political in the sense that they
:04:52. > :04:57.tend to go through a complex process that involves the police
:04:57. > :04:59.board or the police joint board, and then whoever is the relevant
:04:59. > :05:04.government minister. I think that's taking us closer to the position
:05:04. > :05:07.that we have with the Met which is not exactly the best of police
:05:07. > :05:10.forces to compare with at the moment. It's lost two chief
:05:10. > :05:16.constables in quite rapid succession, so, whether that is a
:05:16. > :05:21.foretaste of things to come, let's hope not.
:05:21. > :05:27.There's another doubt: with only one force, who will investigate
:05:27. > :05:30.wrong doing in the national police? A team from England? There are some
:05:30. > :05:35.foot-slogging and door-to-door inquiries to be made before this
:05:35. > :05:39.case is resolved. Earlier, I spoke to the justice
:05:39. > :05:44.secretary Kenny MacAskill and asked him what was so wrong with what
:05:44. > :05:47.we've got. This is about making a virtue out of a necessity. We face
:05:47. > :05:50.huge financial challenges. The cuts coming from Westminster are severe.
:05:50. > :05:54.If we don't change, we face the consequence that is are going to
:05:54. > :05:57.play out south of the border: a huge loss in front line officer
:05:57. > :06:00.numbers and an attack on the terms and conditions of those officers
:06:00. > :06:04.who serve. As a government, we're not prepared to sacrifice a visible
:06:04. > :06:06.police presence in our communities, nor are we prepared to undermine
:06:06. > :06:11.the terms and conditions of those who serve.
:06:12. > :06:14.That's why we've got to change. But the change is also about making
:06:14. > :06:18.the best possible structures. Nobody suggest that the current
:06:18. > :06:22.structure of eight forces with one force being half of the population
:06:22. > :06:27.of Scotland is the best and most appropriate, and this actually
:06:27. > :06:31.makes a virtue of it. It works out, what I believe, will be the police
:06:31. > :06:35.and fire structures for generations to come; it's the right way to go,
:06:35. > :06:42.even if it is driven initially by the financial necessity of the cuts.
:06:42. > :06:45.Given the transitional costs will be about �161 million, you estimate,
:06:45. > :06:48.and given we have this massive financial crisis looming over the
:06:48. > :06:52.next four to five years, at what point do we see the savings come
:06:52. > :06:56.in? First of all, some of the transitional costs have to come
:06:56. > :06:59.anyway. Some of those transitional costs relate to linking up the IT
:06:59. > :07:04.system. At the present moment, we don't have the ability to link and
:07:04. > :07:08.have similar PDAs operated in Strathclyde, or Lothian, or indeed
:07:08. > :07:11.link up elsewhere. So some of the costs are going to be faced anyway
:07:11. > :07:16.whether you change to a single service or not. Admittedly, I do
:07:16. > :07:19.accept there are some transitional costs, but once you get get to a
:07:19. > :07:24.situation within approximately three years of �130 million per
:07:24. > :07:28.annum, that's money we can't sniff at and it's money we can't afford
:07:28. > :07:35.not to grasp. Given that saving is three years away, you think, but
:07:35. > :07:38.you have this initial outlay of �160-odd million, why does that
:07:38. > :07:42.make economic sense in this particular window? The outlet is
:07:42. > :07:45.less than that. Some of those costs have to be incurred anyway. The
:07:45. > :07:49.costs for transition I believe are res than that when you look at what
:07:49. > :07:53.has to be spent to get there. The status quo is not an auction. If we
:07:53. > :07:57.do nothing, then the consequence would be a severe reduction in
:07:57. > :08:01.front line policing, significant hammering into the fire and rescue
:08:01. > :08:04.service - that's what we are seeing played out south of the border. We
:08:04. > :08:07.didn't do anything. We've got to get ourselves in position for the
:08:07. > :08:10.severe financial winds that are blowing. That's why we've got to
:08:10. > :08:14.shell out a little bit up front to get the significant savings, and at
:08:14. > :08:22.the same time get the best structures, because let's be clear,
:08:22. > :08:28.a single service is what is the norm in most Western European
:08:28. > :08:30.European democracies. Let me me ask you about how you secure
:08:30. > :08:33.accountability, and the distinctiveness in relation to to
:08:33. > :08:37.the specific needs of communities in terms of their policing? I think
:08:37. > :08:42.Scotland is a diverse country - we recognise that. Let's be clear,
:08:42. > :08:46.that's a matter that's recognised not simply by different services in
:08:46. > :08:48.Scotland and different forces because clearly some policing in
:08:48. > :08:56.some areas in the north is different from Strathclyde, but I
:08:56. > :08:59.can assure you from my travels, I went to Arran, I've been to
:08:59. > :09:02.inverary Metropolitan Police Officers there, how you police
:09:02. > :09:06.Glasgow on a Friday or Saturday night is vastly different from how
:09:06. > :09:10.a police officer operates on the island of Arran or indeed in Argyll
:09:10. > :09:13.and Bute. That's already recognised within Strathclyde, our largest
:09:13. > :09:16.service, and clearly how you're policing the islands or the rural
:09:16. > :09:20.communities in Scotland is vastly different how you police urban
:09:20. > :09:23.areas. That will be recognised by this. The accountability will be to
:09:23. > :09:27.the Police Authority. They won't interfere operationally, but
:09:27. > :09:31.they're the ones that will make sure that we allow the flexibility
:09:31. > :09:34.for a country that's not uniform or or standard, but equally, what I
:09:34. > :09:38.have to be clear about is that some of the challenges we face don't
:09:38. > :09:42.simply occur in the urban areas. practically a - say practically a
:09:42. > :09:46.divisional commander of an area say, "I need this for my arrest because
:09:47. > :09:52.it needs our specific needs here," and the Chief Constable wherever
:09:52. > :09:55.they are placed says says no, who mediates that? There will be a
:09:55. > :09:58.policing authority, and a policing plan locally about how people wish
:09:58. > :10:02.to see their community. That will be worked out between the local
:10:02. > :10:05.committee and the divisional commander commander. At national
:10:05. > :10:09.level, there'll be priorities set. The Chief Constable, whoever he or
:10:09. > :10:12.she is will be held to account by the Police Authority that said it
:10:12. > :10:15.could be set up in a variety of ways but which will be entirely
:10:15. > :10:20.separate and independent from government, and they will, as I say,
:10:20. > :10:23.hold the Chief Constable to account account if there are tejss between,
:10:23. > :10:27.for example, the local area and the national area, then the Police
:10:27. > :10:30.Authority will have the opportunity to intercede. Do you accept though
:10:30. > :10:34.finally that this whole reorganisation actually sends out a
:10:34. > :10:38.pretty strong signal that you are not in favour of decentralisation?
:10:38. > :10:42.On the contrary. I think this provides for decentralisation. This
:10:42. > :10:46.is a way that we're going to preserve officers in places such as
:10:46. > :10:50.Arran, because as I say, there's a whole suggestion of predicated by
:10:50. > :10:56.those who oppose change is there will be a different into the centre.
:10:56. > :10:59.Thank you very much indeed. The West Lothian Question suddenly
:10:59. > :11:07.sprang to life today with the government to announce a commission
:11:07. > :11:11.to try geten to come one a palatable answer. A runaway Private
:11:11. > :11:16.Members' Bill how Scottish MPs could be barred on English issues
:11:16. > :11:19.seemed to supply a galvanising joke to the coalition;, jolt to the
:11:19. > :11:22.coalition. It is arguably one of the deepest
:11:22. > :11:26.and longest running faultlines in cross-border politics, the voting
:11:26. > :11:32.rights of Scottish MPs who, on the face of it, have more say over
:11:32. > :11:35.England than English MPs have over Scotland.
:11:35. > :11:37.It was Tam Dalyell who posed the so-called West Lothian Question
:11:37. > :11:44.back in the 1970s when he challenged the then Labour's
:11:44. > :11:49.government thinking on devolution. We will go down a motorway to a
:11:49. > :11:52.separate state. A journey on which many of us don't want to embark.
:11:52. > :11:57.was absurd, that he would be able to vote on matters affecting
:11:57. > :12:00.Blackburn in Lancashire but not Blackburn West Lothian in his own
:12:00. > :12:03.constituency. Three decades on, many MPs, particularly English
:12:03. > :12:07.Tories now, want the question answered. There'll be a debate here
:12:07. > :12:11.tomorrow when a Private Members' Bill returns to the Commons, much
:12:11. > :12:18.to the frustration of the UK government. I don't want an English
:12:18. > :12:22.parliament myself. I think that would be far too far and an
:12:22. > :12:26.unnecessary expense, but I think we can resolve procedurally how
:12:26. > :12:34.English legislation is handled at Westminster. These protests in the
:12:34. > :12:40.1980s over Margaret thatchers An unwelcome tax foisted on
:12:40. > :12:44.Scotland by a Tory government. When Scottish Labour MPs helped
:12:44. > :12:48.vote through foundation hospitals, which didn't affect their own
:12:48. > :12:52.constituents during Tony Blair's Premiership, tempers frayed on the
:12:52. > :12:54.other side of the border. Some of those Scottish MPs were even back
:12:54. > :13:02.yesterday trying this time to skupper the coalition's health
:13:02. > :13:05.reforms in England. The noes to the left, 251. I've got constituents
:13:05. > :13:10.who come to me who have had to use the English health service and many,
:13:10. > :13:13.many young people from Scotland go to higher education in England.
:13:13. > :13:16.This is very important to my constituents. Why should I be
:13:16. > :13:19.denied the right to speak out for them, for Scottish people in
:13:19. > :13:22.matters relevant to them in England? UK ministers today
:13:22. > :13:27.confirmed a commission promised in the coalition agreement 15 months
:13:27. > :13:31.ago will now examine the problem. But what about the timing of the
:13:31. > :13:35.announcement? Ministers hope it will persuade Miss Baldwin to
:13:35. > :13:39.withdraw her bill tomorrow. We made a coalition commitment to examine
:13:39. > :13:43.all the - on issues that deal with England predominantly, but other UK
:13:43. > :13:46.issues too. We want to look at the facts, the arguments, and then
:13:46. > :13:49.consider the consequences. going to listen to what the
:13:49. > :13:51.minister says, and I hope to get some further answers to my
:13:51. > :13:55.questions before making that decision.
:13:55. > :13:59.Ministers say the commission will be made up of independent experts.
:13:59. > :14:03.They won't, though, be able to consider funding or number of MPs.
:14:03. > :14:06.So, can you deal with a voting rights of Scottish, Welsh, and
:14:06. > :14:11.Northern Irish members without delving much further into the
:14:11. > :14:14.devolution settlement? If we want to say Scots MPs should not vote on
:14:14. > :14:16.the English matters, it will affect the amount of money the Scottish
:14:16. > :14:21.Parliament receives. That I think lies at the heart of the problem
:14:21. > :14:26.today. We've got to look at boast the West Lothian Question as a
:14:26. > :14:31.question of parliamentary arithmetic in tandem with looking
:14:31. > :14:35.at the financing of devolution. Any effort to address one set of
:14:35. > :14:38.questions - The West Lothian Question is perhaps a step closer
:14:38. > :14:41.to being answered for those worried about it here, but we won't find
:14:41. > :14:46.out the remit of the commission or who sits on it until much later in
:14:46. > :14:49.the year. There's no guarantee the government
:14:49. > :14:52.will follow the commission's recommendations, and even if it
:14:52. > :14:56.does, it will take years. The West Lothian Question is likely to
:14:56. > :15:02.remain unanswered for some years years yet.
:15:02. > :15:06.With me in the studio now is Eddie Barnes, the political editor for
:15:06. > :15:09.Scotland on Sunday. What do you think all of this tells us about
:15:09. > :15:13.the mood of the backbench Tory MPs? Clearly, this is an issue - it's
:15:13. > :15:18.been an issue that's been running through the Conservative Party in
:15:18. > :15:21.England for many years. David Cameron actually I think proposed
:15:21. > :15:23.some reform to look at the West Lothian Question as far back as
:15:23. > :15:29.2007 when he was still in opposition. That has simply
:15:29. > :15:33.extended now. It's a clear issue amongst southern English Tory MPs
:15:33. > :15:37.who see some sense of - have a sense of grievance, whether it is
:15:37. > :15:40.justified or otherwise - that's for others to judge. There is pressure
:15:40. > :15:44.on these MPs, both from sections of of the media in England, from other
:15:44. > :15:46.parties from UKIP, which there has been speculation over the last
:15:46. > :15:52.couple of weeks that they may end up backing an English parliament
:15:52. > :15:58.and kind of taking that issue so, so, I think they feel that they
:15:58. > :16:03.need to do something however symbolic, however irrelevant in
:16:03. > :16:06.some ways this particular issue may end end up being. It is is
:16:06. > :16:08.astonishing the momentum the private member's bill had, really.
:16:08. > :16:12.Absolutely. I don't think anybody in the government was expecting it
:16:12. > :16:15.to actually go this far which is why they were forced, their hand
:16:15. > :16:20.was forced to actually announce this commission today. It was as
:16:20. > :16:23.Michael Moore was saying a coalition commitment. But clearly
:16:23. > :16:27.they felt the need to introduce this in order to see it off. There
:16:27. > :16:29.was a bit after pounce there, you think. Do you think Do you think
:16:29. > :16:31.any of this is a proxy for unhappiness from the Tory
:16:31. > :16:34.backbenchers, some of them, about David Cameron and the fact they
:16:34. > :16:42.don't consider he's really a Tory and that he's conceding far too
:16:42. > :16:46.much to the Lib Dems? Again, yes. That is the subtext to a lot of
:16:46. > :16:49.within the Conservative Party. Europe again is an issue that's
:16:49. > :16:53.raised its head over the last couple of weeks. I think generally
:16:53. > :16:56.the Conservative backbench MPs just feel that there is a need to study
:16:56. > :17:02.this greater detail, bearing in mind the kind of pressures they're
:17:02. > :17:06.under from their own constituents. Eddie, this idea, too, that somehow
:17:06. > :17:11.as came forward in this private member's bill, that somehow you
:17:11. > :17:14.could say there are English-only issues, and the speaker will have
:17:14. > :17:19.to decide what these are, there are concerns about that, because that
:17:19. > :17:23.will be a very hard definition to make, because, you know, something
:17:23. > :17:27.which may appear an English-only issue could have a knock-on effect
:17:27. > :17:31.for Scotland, but the speaker, they are put in an impossible position.
:17:31. > :17:34.None of this is new, and why I say there is a certain amount of
:17:34. > :17:36.scepticism about this commission. It looks as though there's going to
:17:37. > :17:40.be fiddling. There's been suggestions before about trying to
:17:40. > :17:47.get Scottish MPs not to look at bills in committee stage or maybe
:17:47. > :17:49.not take part in first, second, third readings, then it becomes
:17:50. > :17:55.difficult to specify what is English only. The classic example
:17:55. > :17:58.at the moment is tuition fees. You know, this, you could argue, is an
:17:58. > :18:02.English-only issue, but as we've seen over the last few months, it
:18:02. > :18:05.has huge ramifications for Scotland and Scottish MPs will simply say we
:18:05. > :18:10.have a right to vote on this because it's going to make - it has
:18:10. > :18:13.a big jabgtd on our own constituents. We have to see the
:18:13. > :18:17.composition of this, but when you're looking at who will be on it,
:18:17. > :18:20.the composition, if it is a percentage of Tory MPs, Lib Dem MPs,
:18:20. > :18:23.that's going to be very important about the tone of what potentially
:18:23. > :18:26.comes out of this at the end of the day? Yes, it's an interesting one.
:18:26. > :18:29.As I said, it's a coalition commitment but in many ways, the
:18:29. > :18:33.two parties have completely differing pivs and differing aims
:18:33. > :18:36.in this. From the Conservative point of view, as I said earlier,
:18:36. > :18:40.there is in need to reach out to the sense of grievance amongst
:18:40. > :18:43.their own support. From the liberal point of view, there is this issue
:18:43. > :18:46.of the desire to move to a federal United Kingdom which perhaps they
:18:46. > :18:49.will be looking to use this commission to advance that
:18:49. > :18:56.particular idea. They would see federalism as the only answer to
:18:56. > :18:59.this presumably? That is their policy, and I think in many ways
:18:59. > :19:04.there are two answers to this. One is independence, and one is that
:19:04. > :19:07.you create this, a federal United Kingdom with regional assemblies
:19:07. > :19:11.and governments around the the country. Is there an appetite for
:19:11. > :19:14.federalism in England? No, the last time it was put to the test in the
:19:14. > :19:18.north-east, it was roundly rejected. Let's look finally to the point
:19:18. > :19:21.about the finances being tied into this, the parliament parliamentary
:19:21. > :19:26.finances in Scotland be tied into whatever happens here, it's not
:19:27. > :19:29.just about voting patterns, it's a bigger issue here. The point in the
:19:29. > :19:35.package was correct. The much bigger issue is finance. That's why
:19:35. > :19:38.I as I say, there is a scepticism about a commission that simply
:19:38. > :19:42.looks at the legislative side of things which is in many ways a bit
:19:42. > :19:46.of a red herring. The question is what to do about the Barnett
:19:46. > :19:50.Formula, and as we know, this commission isn't going to look at
:19:50. > :19:55.that at all. We've asked this question a hundred times - any
:19:55. > :20:00.answer? Poor old West Lothian is going to be stuck with the question
:20:00. > :20:10.for a big longer, I suspect. Now a look at tomorrow's front pages very
:20:10. > :20:10.
:20:10. > :20:14.quickly. The Times: ten years on on, Blair says the Iran is the enemy.
:20:14. > :20:20.The Scottish Daily Mail is saying that nurses who can't speak English
:20:20. > :20:25.put patients in danger. They're particularly citing nurses from
:20:25. > :20:31.eastern Europe. The Guardian is looking at the Baha Mousa report