28/11/2011 Newsnight Scotland

look for now is that anybody in politics has a practical clue of

On Newsnight Scotland: More cash for capital spending, but where

does the Chancellor's plan to invest billions of pounds leave

projects in Scotland, and is it a sign that George Osborne is taking

a leaf out of the First Minister's book?

And we speak to Helena Kennedy, the author of a report which says

Scotland must do much more to tackle human trafficking.

Good evening. As we have been hearing, ahead of his autumn

statement tomorrow, the Chancellor, George Osborne, has announced that

capital investment across the UK is to get a �30 billion boost from the

Treasury. That comes after we were told the Government would

underwrite �40 billion worth of loans to small businesses. So, is

this a sign of a Plan B, or even Alex Salmond's Plan Mac B? Here's

David Allison. In an economic storm, the markets

want to see a firm hand on the tiller, but as the economist John

Maynard Keynes apparently said, when the facts change, I changed my

mind. The lack of growth in the economy means that George Osborne

is facing new facts and having to alter course, steady. We are

setting out plans today for a 30 billion pound investment in our

country's infrastructure, in its roads, railways, schools. Some of

that money will come from the Government from savings, much of it

is good to come from the private sector, from pension funds, so we

use British savings to invest in British jobs and British building.

It is the right thing to do a better time like this. We have got

to take our country through these difficult times and laid the

foundations for future success. work begins on this new crossing

over the River Forth, the question is whether or not the Chancellor

will take a leaf out of the First Minister's book. This is a 40 %

decline from Westminster in capital investment. The Chancellor needs to

look at the Scottish experience and learn from it how to get through

this recession. At the time, the Conservatives dismissed the plan as

political junk food. On this programme last month, the Liberal

Democrats were scathing about the proposal. I have no idea what is in

the Autumn Statement. I hope it is not plan bullocks, which seems to

be coming out. That will not sound like a plan B to them, that will

sound like nothing but a lot of mints, and that is what they have

come to expect from their First Minister. The SNP government has

consistently argued for more capital spending. The Chancellor

has got to make a balance and the judgement between the level of

borrowing and the opportunities for growth and currently the chance

to's judgment about the level of borrowing - - level of borrowing

and growth is out of kilter. I am saying a limited programme of

capital investment, because without that if we are to be seeing growth

at the limited level but we are currently experiencing, then did

Chancellor's wider economic projections about tea - - about how

he can reduce borrowing will be subject to real pressures. Today

there was a warning that the Eurozone and UK could be entering a

recession with the UK economy contracting by 0.03 % this quarter

and a further 0.015 % next year. They said that and negative events

in the euro-zone could even cause a global contraction. Despite a

shallow recession in the period from September through to March

next year, they do expect positive growth for the whole of 2012 of 0.2

% of the Eurozone and 0.5 % for the UK. What is clear is that these are

difficult economic times for many countries and there are predicting

deep recessions in many European countries. That is a challenge for

Britain. What we can do with our policies of dealing with her debts

is we can take Britain safely through this tour, which is a key

priority, but we have got to lay the foundations for future economic

success. A alongside all the facts, something more ephemeral,

confidence, and the need for the perception that things will be all

right. Perhaps that is why the Chancellor and Shadow Chancellor

looked so cosy together on the interview so far at the weekend.

believe that Ed Balls has good motives. We're both trying to get

the economy going. We have always got on pretty well. I think he has

made one big judgment wrong. Tomorrow's Autumn Statement from

the Chancellor will be closely studied for signs of steady as she

goes, an emerging plan B or even plan Mac be.

Joining me now from Westminster is the SNP's Treasury spokesman,

Stewart Hosie. In Aberdeen is Malcolm Bruce of the Liberal

Democrats. Are we going to get a new plan tomorrow from the

Chancellor? No, we are not. We have set a course that has enabled UK

borrowing to be the lowest in Europe and the opposition parties

advocating policies that were prepared at risk. Anybody needs to

think about what effect of 4% increase in their mortgage rates

for interest payments would be. That is the danger if we depart

from the fundamental objective of bringing the public finances back

into order. This additional investment in infrastructure is

what opposition parties have been calling for. They have certainly

been calling for us to borrow more. What the Chancellor has said is is

he is looking for scope to do two things. Bring forward some of the

spending commitments that are already there and to pick up for

some underspending has taken place. We will have to see how the

mechanism will work tomorrow, to unlock private investment that can

help projects to come forward. Regardless of where the money is

coming from, this is the sort of investment the g have been calling

for. Two things that have been said so far. One is the axis the

business finance, a key component of our plan. The other was direct

capital investment. The Chancellor has said �30 billion worth of

infrastructure investment. There is one note of caution here. A great

deal of it is going to come from the pension funds, over 10 years.

We must make sure tomorrow that there is a big chunk of spending

happens up front quickly to give the economy the stimulus it

requires. The amount that has been talked about is the sort of amount

you think is required, do you? You are claiming the credit for this?

The 30 billion is a big figure. That depends so much to be

dispensed quickly. If there is 15 or 20 billion spent quickly, then

that is a 1% shot in the arm of bird GDP growth, that is a stimulus.

At this trouble side over a decade it will not have the impact that it

might have. In terms of access to business finance and direct capital

expenditure, two of the key exponents of our plan B, I am glad

that the Chancellor has changed his mind. Any idea how much of this

money will come to projects in Scotland? We will have to see.

There is a whole package of measures here which includes access

to finance for businesses. Access to the Youth guarantee which will

allow businesses and Scotland to take on young people have. There

will also be some Barnett extras that will come through to Scotland.

The challenge to the Scottish government is that they get this

money, will they spend it in ways that will deliver growth? They have

not been doing that. The detail is not there in their plan B. A lot of

what the Government has been doing in Scotland are flag-waving,

populist things that have not made a big difference. The government in

England is trying to find ways to unlock money will make a difference

in the short run. The Scottish government has to find ways of

doing the same. What will you spend any extra money on? What projects

will be brought forward? I am sure every local authority and public

body have a whole raft of project, housing, schools, roads. Give us a

priority. The priority is to keep people in jobs and give GDP growth

that boosted knees. I can specify specific projects. If you look at

what happened when we profiled the expenditure last time, we had a

shorter and shallower recession in Scotland because it worked. Have we

have access to the capital this time, the Scottish government and

the rest of the public sector will spend just as wisely keeping people

in employment and making sure we minimise the risk of recession next

time. The SNP government were boasting that Scotland was beating

the recession and in reality all that happened was they were ament

behind the rest of the UK. They're constantly claiming credit for

things outside their control and asserting that things that can

happen which were an international crisis, and the scope for any

government to turn around is limited. What we can do is give

businesses the opportunity to get access to finance, take on young

people, put more money into apprenticeships and colleges which

Scotland has not done, and targeting infrastructure. Because

we be profiled expenditure previously, our recession was

shorter and shallower. But isn't Scotland back in recession? That

must - - that is not even true. Be cut back capital spending. They

stopped projects from going ahead. They claimed credit for things they

have not done and they assert they can do things that go outside their

control. They should work in partnership and say whether or not

they are going to use the money to invest in jobs and growth in a

practical way. I want to ask you, this argument, isn't it almost

irrelevant, aren't we at the mercy of the Eurozone? I don't think it

is a relevant, but people should not lose sight of the fact that

none of our trading partners have no growth, we can do it for export

opportunities in the growing economies and we can find ways of

helping businesses that have the potential to grow by giving them

skills and investment. To pretend that we can somehow turn the world

economy round by measures from the British government is wrong and

dangerous, because at the bar to do a double put interest rates up

which will put us deeper into recession. So worried back in

recession now? I hope not. The whole economy is flats. The

opposition parties would put us back into recession. Are we in

recession in Scotland? I don't know because I haven't seen the numbers,

the most recent numbers. The Eurozone is struggling. We need to

do everything we can domestically to stimulate the economy here,

which is why I'm bad it is that unlike he is going to do some of

the things that have been leaked Scotland's approach to human

trafficking is piecemeal and inconsistent according to a report

by Baroness Helena Kennedy. She says got the needs a new system in

place before the 2014 commercial games. Trafficking includes not

only women in Commercial sexual exploitation but also involved in

domestic servitude. Last month, these people became the

first in Scotland to be prosecuted for human trafficking. They

admitted moving 14 men and women between brothels in Glasgow,

Edinburgh, Belfast and Newcastle. The legislation on human

trafficking was passed in 2003. The fact that eight years on, this was

the first conviction, illustrates the difficulty in prosecuting cases.

Today's report calls for more legislation. They also recommend

increasing awareness, especially among professionals who may come

into contact with victims. They want the police to improve

intelligence gathering and the Procurator Fiscal to develop

specialisms to improve Prosecutions. And they should be an end to end

service to take care of victims. According to figures, 74 people

have been trafficked into Scotland since 2009. But that is almost

certainly an underestimate. When we do not know the scale of the

problem, tackling it will be a huge problem -- challenge. Earlier, I

spoke to Baroness Helena Kennedy and asked her why we need new

legislation. There is a whole set of legislation around human

trafficking. It is very confusing to the police. It is unsatisfactory

for those who prosecute these cases. When you bring it all together in

one piece of sensible legislation, you know what we are dealing with.

We are talking that sex trafficking but that is not the only kind of

trafficking. You have the trafficking of migrant labour and

also clear evidence of domestic servitude in Scotland. But is there

any evidence that the existing law is not good enough to cover the

sort of cases which might come up? What the prosecution services would

say to you is that one of the problems is that these cases have

been falling between roles. There was no sense of who was the lead

agency. Sometimes, if police did a raid on drugs and saw foreign women

on the premises, they would hand them over to the Border Agency and

it would become an immigration issue rather than a crime issue.

This is essentially a crime and human rights issue. Crime for the

traffickers and human rights issue for the victims. Passing it over to

the Border Agency is perhaps about the legality of people living in

the country in appropriately and let's see if they should be

packaged off home. While -- be a remedy for us, does not a remedy

for the people because they would be returned into the arms of the

traffickers. The police have said, hands up, there is a gap in the

intelligence but that is being addressed now because they have got

a specific unit looking at this and prosecutors are developing a

specialism. Isn't it fair to give them a chance to see what they can

do without tying up Parliament with fresh legislation? If it was always

hunky Dory like that you would not have the Lord Advocate coming to

the event today saying he wholeheartedly recommended the

report and the changes in the law. Lawyers would like to see an

aggravating offence, where even if they cannot prosecute for

trafficking, if there is a background to brothel keeping where

it is clear that trafficking is involved, it could add to the

sentences which people have imposed on them. There is a whole set of

things which lawyers would like to see happening. There is a problem

in Scotland around the corroboration law. It is a source

of pride in Scotland that he had have two pieces of evidence at

least before you could convict. That will always be problematic

when you're dealing with an offence in private. For sex offences, rake,

domestic violence, it has always been a problem and there will be a

review about whether the corroboration rules are a good

thing -- rape. Lord Carlile has called for the corroboration rules

to end and you would support that? I would support that. It used to

exist in sexual offences in England which was why you could not get

convictions in rape cases. Sometimes, a woman can be a very

compelling witness or anybody who is traffic can be a compelling

witness and a jury can believe them but there is this requirement that

evidence comes from another source and that would be difficult in this

case. Do you think the authorities in Scotland take trafficking

seriously enough? I think there is a real willingness. Everyone who

why took evidence from was re clear that they take this seriously. They

also felt there was problems with how you dealt with it. What they

wanted was a more collaborative approach. They see this as crime

and the police want to deal with it as crime. This is about organised

crime most of the time. Not always but it usually is about organised

crime. What is happening is you are now suddenly seeing local criminals,

home-grown criminals and gangs getting interested and seeing money

in this and then linking up with international traffickers and

wanting in on the act. Once you get that multiplier effect of local

criminals connecting up to the Foreign traffickers, you will start

seeing this as a very serious problem. We saw it with drugs in

the past. You start getting importers linking up with the East

End gangs who used to do on robberies but had to diversify into

other things. You see other crimes following in the wake. You are keen

to see action swiftly, some suggestion that it might be

important to see changes before the Commonwealth Games, why is that?

Any big sporting event attracts criminality and it attracts this

kind, men coming to watch sporting events so you will get traffickers

bringing in women from abroad. It has always been, and they

discovered that in Greece when they had the Olympic Games there.

Scotland could be a pioneer in this and I think there is a willingness

to see Scotland taking the lead like they did under domestic

violence and they are now doing about mapping organised crime. This

is a very important development. Tomorrow's papers, the Scotsman