Browse content similar to 08/11/2011. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
will be pushing that through the Tonight on Newsnight Scotland, the | :00:11. | :00:16. | |
latest study of the Scottish economy suggests it is doing even | :00:16. | :00:21. | |
worse than we thought it was. Is it time for a change of policy in | :00:21. | :00:31. | |
:00:31. | :00:37. | ||
Can industry pay the way to a wealthier future? The latest Fraser | :00:37. | :00:41. | |
of Allander report bricks were pretty gloomy reading for | :00:41. | :00:47. | |
politicians. Recovery here is slower than the UK. Is as much the | :00:47. | :00:51. | |
same thing about employment. Many of the arguments used by the | :00:51. | :01:01. | |
:01:01. | :01:03. | ||
coalition government in London to The Fraser of Allander report | :01:03. | :01:09. | |
clearly goes into forecasting where others fear to tread. It did so | :01:09. | :01:16. | |
again today. Scotland's economy growth has gone down to 0.4 %. Next | :01:16. | :01:24. | |
year, it is being downgraded again. That puts Scotland a long way | :01:24. | :01:34. | |
:01:34. | :01:36. | ||
behind independent forecasts for So what is going on? There is the | :01:36. | :01:42. | |
big picture. Scotland may seem a long way from Athens and Rome, | :01:42. | :01:45. | |
added has a different currency, but we are not protected from | :01:45. | :01:50. | |
uncertainty in the euro-zone. quite clear that the UK and | :01:50. | :01:53. | |
Scottish economies are weakening. They are also might -- almost | :01:53. | :02:00. | |
stagnating. It is sad that this has come to pass. What is driving this | :02:00. | :02:05. | |
is the hangover from the credit crunch. Household spending | :02:05. | :02:09. | |
continues to be weak, particularly in Scotland. That means obviously, | :02:09. | :02:14. | |
the demand for locally produced services particularly as being | :02:14. | :02:18. | |
affected. The service sector has hardly recovered a tour in Scotland. | :02:18. | :02:24. | |
Let's bring the questions closer to home. Standard Life was shedding | :02:24. | :02:34. | |
:02:34. | :02:39. | ||
jobs today, and 507 and 80 staff were facing redundancy at a chain | :02:39. | :02:46. | |
of care homes. Aberdeen is dominated by boil and gas, and that | :02:46. | :02:53. | |
is strong. Oil prices have been high for some time. Come down to | :02:53. | :02:57. | |
the central belt, and it is different. There has been some | :02:57. | :03:02. | |
contracture for me bigger banks, but they have been lots of start-up. | :03:02. | :03:09. | |
Move across to Glasgow, and you have a much different service and | :03:09. | :03:14. | |
manufacturing sector. It is much tougher. Companies have done well | :03:14. | :03:18. | |
to tidy up the balance sheet. But where is the growth going to come | :03:18. | :03:22. | |
from? It is the poor showing I in the business and financial sector | :03:22. | :03:28. | |
that is identified as a particular problem by the Fraser of Allander | :03:28. | :03:33. | |
report. It has gone down 11 % since the downturn began. This company is | :03:33. | :03:41. | |
doing quite well. It is using its document handling technology | :03:41. | :03:48. | |
to/payroll costs. The general everyday small to medium-size | :03:48. | :03:53. | |
enterprises tend be holding onto their equipment as long as they can, | :03:53. | :03:56. | |
because they are feeling particularly tight. That affects | :03:56. | :04:00. | |
our business, because they are not replacing the equipment as often as | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
they used to. There's the gap two big questions coming out of the | :04:04. | :04:09. | |
forecast. Why is Scollan grown more slowly than the rest of the UK? | :04:09. | :04:19. | |
:04:19. | :04:26. | ||
Westminster... What is the best way The problem for Scotland is the | :04:26. | :04:33. | |
problem of a small, open economy. Even if you do spend in the economy, | :04:33. | :04:37. | |
it is going to leak out. We are dependent upon what is happening in | :04:37. | :04:43. | |
the rest of the United Kingdom, and what is happening in Europe. We | :04:43. | :04:51. | |
export significant amount. We rely much more on exports, and much more | :04:51. | :04:56. | |
on external demand. Whatever the local government can do to | :04:56. | :05:06. | |
:05:06. | :05:07. | ||
stimulate growth is why we are so much buffeted in -- by what is | :05:07. | :05:13. | |
happening in London, and Brussels and Frankfurt. Where is the extra | :05:13. | :05:23. | |
:05:23. | :05:29. | ||
capital spending to come from? The I am joined by MPs in London. John | :05:29. | :05:33. | |
Thurso for the Liberal Democrat and Stewart Hosie for the SNP. John | :05:33. | :05:39. | |
Thurso, the implication of all this, let -- yet another cut in growth | :05:39. | :05:44. | |
forecasts, is it something that really needs to be done? Your | :05:44. | :05:47. | |
government says that everything has to go the same way and nothing can | :05:47. | :05:52. | |
change. I think the first thing to say is that there is no great | :05:52. | :05:56. | |
surprise in this report, and anyone who has been following the Scottish | :05:56. | :06:00. | |
economy would have expected something like these numbers to | :06:00. | :06:07. | |
appear to reflect what is happening in the wider UK, and as his what is | :06:07. | :06:11. | |
happening in the US and other countries in the Western world. The | :06:11. | :06:16. | |
question is what should be done about it. We need to hold steady to | :06:16. | :06:19. | |
the deficit reduction programme. The report quite rightly pulls -- | :06:19. | :06:25. | |
points out that while Scotland is suffering more now is because stop | :06:25. | :06:30. | |
-- the Scottish government decided not to stop this austerity | :06:30. | :06:36. | |
programme -- programme last year. But the report also describes as a | :06:36. | :06:41. | |
myth the idea that you can Engineer economic recovery in a situation | :06:41. | :06:50. | |
like the one we are in now. I beg to differ. The problem we have now | :06:50. | :06:55. | |
is a massive debt legacy. We are not cutting the debt. It is | :06:55. | :06:58. | |
increasing every year of this Parliament. We are cutting the rate | :06:58. | :07:02. | |
of increase in the dead. That is what we are doing. If we do not do | :07:02. | :07:07. | |
that, we end up in a completely unsustainable place that Greece was | :07:08. | :07:12. | |
in, and what it really looks like it might be going towards. That is | :07:13. | :07:19. | |
clearly not somewhere where the UK wants to be. The best thing you can | :07:19. | :07:24. | |
do in a recession it is to keep your interest rates down. Our cost | :07:24. | :07:30. | |
of borrowing is low because of the action taken by the government. I | :07:30. | :07:33. | |
hope the government are not complacent about that. That is why | :07:33. | :07:43. | |
I applaud the decision for quantitative easing. Other like | :07:43. | :07:47. | |
Seymour Investment. It is question of pulling it forward. -- I it | :07:47. | :07:56. | |
would like to see more investment. If it wasn't for the austerity | :07:56. | :08:05. | |
programme that you put into place, Britain would risk finding itself | :08:05. | :08:12. | |
in the same position that Italy is in. I think George Osborne | :08:12. | :08:17. | |
overstate their at. It is growth we need as much as anything. -- he | :08:17. | :08:26. | |
overstate that. I am assuming that is what is meant. The report was | :08:26. | :08:32. | |
untrue -- extremely interesting. They identified the global downturn, | :08:32. | :08:39. | |
the contagion in the eurozone and the global sovereign markets. It | :08:39. | :08:44. | |
also identified specific issues like access to business finance for | :08:44. | :08:48. | |
those businesses that want to grow, and that is one of the measures | :08:48. | :08:51. | |
that we have found vitally important to get the growth in the | :08:51. | :08:57. | |
economy that we need. It also did not say much for some of the claims | :08:57. | :09:00. | |
that the Scottish government has been making about how it has been | :09:01. | :09:05. | |
managing the crisis. It found that while it is true that the recession | :09:05. | :09:10. | |
in Scotland was shallower than the rest of the UK, the recovery is | :09:10. | :09:15. | |
slower than in the rest of the UK, and recovery in employment is also | :09:15. | :09:21. | |
slower than the rest of the UK. was shallower because of the | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
actions of the Scottish government. It is slightly slower because there | :09:26. | :09:36. | |
:09:36. | :09:37. | ||
is less capacity, precisely because of it being lower. None of this is | :09:37. | :09:42. | |
surprising. The question is, how do be boost the growth, given that it | :09:42. | :09:47. | |
cannot be export Les -- export led with the difficulties in the euro- | :09:47. | :09:50. | |
zone and the United States. How do we stimulate the demand and create | :09:50. | :09:56. | |
the jobs that we need to put vibrancy back into the economy? | :09:56. | :10:00. | |
answer to your own question is what? Now three significant | :10:00. | :10:05. | |
components. There should be a breeze to capital investment. The | :10:05. | :10:10. | |
second is access to business finance but the report identified. | :10:10. | :10:14. | |
The third is confident. As far as possible, trying to keep people in | :10:14. | :10:23. | |
This point about interest rates on government debt. You heard in the | :10:23. | :10:29. | |
report, it significantly rejects the argument you just made. He | :10:29. | :10:32. | |
argued that the reason is because one, it reflects an expectation | :10:32. | :10:35. | |
that growth in the economy will be very low for a long time and | :10:35. | :10:40. | |
secondly, it reflects a flight to safety, people putting money into | :10:40. | :10:44. | |
US government debt, British debt, German debt, simply because they | :10:44. | :10:47. | |
don't want to invest it and do productive things in the real | :10:47. | :10:52. | |
economy. He is entitled to his opinion, but I was reading the Bank | :10:52. | :10:56. | |
of England quarterly report not long before I came in and what they | :10:56. | :11:03. | |
put forward is very much the case that prudent fiscal management is | :11:03. | :11:08. | |
actually a major factor in keeping the cost of government borrowing | :11:08. | :11:12. | |
down. The counter fact to that is to look at what has happened in | :11:12. | :11:17. | |
Italy, which is a major economy, third or 4th largest economy in | :11:17. | :11:24. | |
Europe, which has seen its cost of debt shoot up Ed a period of two, | :11:24. | :11:29. | |
three months, simply because it hasn't got a grip on its finances - | :11:29. | :11:33. | |
- in a period. Whether we are cutting too far, there is a | :11:33. | :11:36. | |
perfectly legitimate argument, but what is absolutely clear is where | :11:36. | :11:41. | |
week -- were we to have cut too little, we would now be sitting in | :11:41. | :11:45. | |
a position not dissimilar to the Italian economy and that would be a | :11:45. | :11:50. | |
very uncomfortable place to be. So I would rather see the Government | :11:50. | :11:54. | |
bearing on the side of caution, it is a better place to be for | :11:54. | :11:57. | |
building for the future than the chaos that is happening to those | :11:57. | :12:02. | |
countries that have been overtaken by the markets. You don't seem to | :12:02. | :12:07. | |
be fundamentally challenging the Government. I thought the SNP's | :12:07. | :12:11. | |
view was that the whole thing was wrong-headed, that we need fiscal | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
expansion in the current situation in order to get growth back into | :12:14. | :12:18. | |
the economy, not just a little bit more capital spending and some | :12:18. | :12:21. | |
fiddling around with the banks to get them to lend more to small | :12:21. | :12:27. | |
businesses. Do. We made about the Government's plan -- of the point | :12:27. | :12:32. | |
we made about the plan was that the time to remove the structural debt | :12:32. | :12:37. | |
over one Parliament, a fixed time frame, was very foolish, but we are | :12:37. | :12:40. | |
where we are with an autumn statement coming up in November and | :12:40. | :12:46. | |
I am hoping the Chancellor will see sense, whatever plan he calls it, | :12:46. | :12:49. | |
but takes some of the measures I have outlined and some of the | :12:49. | :12:52. | |
measures other people have outlined to try and do something to | :12:52. | :12:55. | |
stimulate the economy and get the growth we need, even if it is only | :12:56. | :13:01. | |
for the UK government to keep to its target, which was bad enough. | :13:01. | :13:05. | |
There has been all of this talk about alternative plans, we don't | :13:05. | :13:09. | |
care about the name, but this idea of setting up some sort of | :13:09. | :13:13. | |
mechanism to lend money to small businesses. Is that really in the | :13:13. | :13:23. | |
pipeline? I have no idea what is in the Autumn Statement. I hope it is | :13:23. | :13:28. | |
not a plan rubbish, which is what is coming out of Edinburgh. It is | :13:28. | :13:33. | |
pretty much what George Osborne has been saying it, isn't it? What I am | :13:33. | :13:37. | |
looking for his things the Government are already doing to | :13:37. | :13:42. | |
start to take effect -- is things. The regional growth fund, | :13:42. | :13:46. | |
Enterprise Zones, a look at the consequential for Scotland that | :13:46. | :13:50. | |
come out of that. Look at the extra money that will be available. Will | :13:50. | :13:55. | |
it be invested in Scotland or will it just be spent on things we don't | :13:55. | :13:59. | |
particularly need? We will have to leave it there, thank you both very | :13:59. | :14:01. | |
much indeed. Could science hold the key to | :14:01. | :14:04. | |
reviving the national finances? Tomorrow in Edinburgh, the annual | :14:04. | :14:07. | |
Science and the Parliament event will bring together scientists and | :14:07. | :14:10. | |
politicians to discuss what science can do for the economy - and vice | :14:10. | :14:15. | |
versa. And timed to coincide with it, a pointer from the past - it's | :14:15. | :14:18. | |
been announced in the past few minutes that the Royal Society of | :14:18. | :14:20. | |
Chemistry is to honour the Scottish scientist who became the world's | :14:20. | :14:23. | |
first oil baron. Our science correspondent Kenneth Macdonald has | :14:23. | :14:33. | |
:14:33. | :14:36. | ||
By the time this film was made in 1937, James Young was already | :14:36. | :14:46. | |
:14:46. | :14:48. | ||
history. He distilled hydrocarbons, creating a light oil for lamps, | :14:48. | :14:53. | |
heavy oil for lubrication and the modern oil industry. He opened the | :14:53. | :14:58. | |
first oil refinery in West Lothian. He was the one who thought of | :14:58. | :15:01. | |
getting it from the she'll or oil in the first place, are nothing to | :15:01. | :15:06. | |
have these discoveries, -- and nothing to have these discovered, | :15:06. | :15:10. | |
and we have a large number of them we can call our own, he has never | :15:10. | :15:17. | |
been celebrated. There is as yet no stay tuned to paraffin young. But | :15:17. | :15:27. | |
now the Royal Society of chemistry is to commemorate him. Paraffin | :15:27. | :15:29. | |
Young is and forgotten in West Lothian, where there is still | :15:29. | :15:35. | |
plenty of evidence of the shale oil industry. Scotland does have a | :15:35. | :15:39. | |
tendency to dwell on its scientific past. But what does the future | :15:39. | :15:48. | |
hold? Paraffin Young attended what is now Strathclyde University, | :15:48. | :15:54. | |
where this man holds the chair in chemistry. Before recent materials | :15:54. | :15:58. | |
in use of display screens and lasers are among many other | :15:59. | :16:02. | |
developments being worked on here. The professor says a multi- | :16:02. | :16:05. | |
disciplinary approach will pay dividends for the Scottish economy. | :16:05. | :16:11. | |
We need chemists to make materials, we need physicists to understand | :16:11. | :16:15. | |
the properties of the systems when they are working in devices, unique | :16:15. | :16:19. | |
the electronic engineers to try and optimise them and once you have | :16:19. | :16:23. | |
everything in a nutshell and good efficiency and a product that lasts, | :16:23. | :16:26. | |
which is a key issue, and you get the price down, you have really got | :16:26. | :16:31. | |
a product. If you look at Scotland's cross section across | :16:31. | :16:35. | |
academia, and technology, we have all of that and we can exploited. | :16:35. | :16:42. | |
There are areas like Fawlty -- photovoltaic that we can expand on, | :16:42. | :16:47. | |
and we can end up with a product that will not necessarily be for | :16:47. | :16:50. | |
the 5 million plus in Scotland it will be for a whole world, so the | :16:50. | :17:00. | |
:17:00. | :17:00. | ||
market is huge. So what else might be on the horizon? I think we can | :17:00. | :17:07. | |
safely say that many of the future discoveries that will be important | :17:07. | :17:13. | |
in medicine will come from Scottish Science. I think if we look at | :17:13. | :17:22. | |
renewable energy, then wave, tide, water, Hydro-Electric, whatever... | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
Interestingly, I think we can look at solar energy as well, I think | :17:26. | :17:30. | |
all of the renewable energies we can look at from Scotland and I | :17:30. | :17:34. | |
would be very surprised if Scotland didn't have a big part to play in | :17:34. | :17:39. | |
helping drive forward, if you want the green agenda. A like James | :17:39. | :17:47. | |
Young, he was very much embedded in the fossil fuel age -- unlike. We | :17:47. | :17:51. | |
are now at a time within science where we are trying to address | :17:51. | :17:56. | |
energy issues, which are partly created by the things that James | :17:56. | :18:00. | |
Young and his technologies the bid. So we are trying to reduce carbon | :18:00. | :18:06. | |
dioxide emissions, we are trying to... Where my research fits in is | :18:06. | :18:10. | |
an area which will create more efficient devices, that will use | :18:10. | :18:15. | |
far less power and can use green power, green electricity. We are | :18:15. | :18:20. | |
also producing devices, Organic sells for example, that can convert | :18:20. | :18:27. | |
sunlight into electricity and provide a clean source of energy. | :18:27. | :18:31. | |
The questions of how Research like that can sustain an economy and has | :18:31. | :18:34. | |
Scotland can support the research will be central to tomorrow's | :18:34. | :18:39. | |
Science and the Parliament event. It is tempting to think as paraffin | :18:39. | :18:42. | |
are something distinctly old- fashioned, that your daddy used to | :18:42. | :18:47. | |
put in a room heater, but if you want to get the full scale of | :18:47. | :18:52. | |
change young's legacy, you only have to look up. -- James Young's | :18:52. | :19:00. | |
legacy. The rest of the world calls it kerosene, jet fuel. Sir James | :19:00. | :19:04. | |
Young's developments continue to underpin our fossil-fuel economy. | :19:04. | :19:07. | |
Will Scotland have a similar stake in a future driven by renewable | :19:08. | :19:11. | |
energy? That will be up to our current generation of scientists | :19:11. | :19:15. | |
and politicians. A quick buck that tomorrow's front | :19:15. | :19:20. | |
pages, starting with The Scotsman. -- a quick look. This is a report | :19:20. | :19:27. | |
which says Scotland would have to pay into the bail-out fund if they | :19:27. | :19:31. | |
joined the eurozone. The Guardian leads on that it was the Euro that | :19:31. | :19:37. | |
got him, Berlusconi fought -- forced out. That is all we have | :19:37. | :19:47. | |
:19:47. | :19:51. | ||
time for tonight. I'm back tomorrow. Good evening. I cloudy, damp and | :19:51. | :19:54. | |
misty night tonight but temperatures will hold up into the | :19:54. | :19:57. | |
mild levels but it does mean a rather dismal start to the morning. | :19:57. | :20:03. | |
More rain and drizzle around, baby bride has to was the north of | :20:03. | :20:08. | |
Cumbria in the afternoon -- maybe. But most of England will hold on to | :20:08. | :20:13. | |
the cloud and drizzle. Across the Midlands and East Anglia and the | :20:13. | :20:16. | |
south, at the chance that after the dismal start, things may brighten | :20:16. | :20:21. | |
up enough to allow some outbreaks coming through the cloud, | :20:21. | :20:25. | |
temperatures around 16. The South West will hold on to cloudy | :20:25. | :20:28. | |
conditions throughout, and Wales, and heavier pulses of rain | :20:28. | :20:33. | |
throughout the day. Once that he's is during the afternoon, you might | :20:33. | :20:38. | |
see some brightness. -- eases. The same in Northern Ireland, but | :20:38. | :20:41. | |
predominantly damp. Damp and cloudy across southern and eastern | :20:42. | :20:45. | |
Scotland, but the far north, even though there will be more cloud | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
than today, should be reasonably bright. Thursday, the difference is | :20:50. | :20:53. | |
not usually discernible. If anything, the rain across some | :20:53. | :20:57. | |
parts of Scotland, Western in that that Wales could be heavier and | :20:57. | :21:02. | |
more persistent. -- Western in that. Either side, there should be some | :21:02. | :21:07. | |
sunshine. Brightening up from the West, the eastern fringes of | :21:07. | :21:12. |