14/03/2012

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:00:06. > :00:10.by the BBC's school report. You can catch him again of them.

:00:10. > :00:14.-- catch him again then. Tonight on Newsnight Scotland, the

:00:14. > :00:17.Crown Office says the police are once again on the case of the

:00:17. > :00:21.World's End murders. We'll ask if what they call "new, compelling

:00:21. > :00:24.evidence of guilt" is on the way this time round, after 34 years.

:00:24. > :00:28.Unemployment is still getting worse. Can governments do anything

:00:28. > :00:31.meaningful to avoid a lost generation of youth?

:00:31. > :00:34.And minimum pricing is on the way, but the Canadian example suggests

:00:34. > :00:39.there's still more to do to resolve the nation's problems with booze

:00:39. > :00:43.once and for all. Good evening. First tonight, a

:00:43. > :00:46.story which only a few years ago would have been quite impossible.

:00:46. > :00:48.This afternoon, the Crown Office confirmed that it has instructed

:00:48. > :00:51.Lothian and Borders Police to carry out new investigations into the

:00:51. > :00:56.murders of Christine Eadie and Helen Scott, which took place in

:00:56. > :01:01.1977. A man called Angus Sinclair, a convicted killer, was acquitted

:01:01. > :01:08.of their murder in 2007. I'm joined by our investigations correspondent

:01:08. > :01:15.Mark Daly. He broke the story today. First of

:01:15. > :01:20.all, remind us about this case. This is a case that resonated in

:01:20. > :01:26.Scotland. Christine Eadie and Hama were innocent teenage girls,

:01:26. > :01:32.enjoying a Saturday night in World's End pub in 19 is under

:01:32. > :01:35.seven. They left the pub at 11pm. They were accompanied by two

:01:35. > :01:40.unidentified male's. They were never seen alive again but found

:01:40. > :01:45.murdered the next day. They had been strangled using items of their

:01:45. > :01:50.own clothing and there began a murder hunt spanning decades and

:01:50. > :01:56.what became one of Scotland's most notorious double murders. It took

:01:56. > :02:04.30 years before his suspect was identified. That was Angus Sinclair.

:02:04. > :02:09.He stood trial, as we heard, in 2007, but the case collapsed. There

:02:09. > :02:14.is bitter recriminations about how it was handled, the case. As the

:02:14. > :02:19.law stood back then, there was a chance he could be brought back to

:02:19. > :02:26.trial. If there is growing to be a retrial, what is your understanding

:02:26. > :02:31.of the new evidence? Firstly, it might be useful to say how it might

:02:31. > :02:34.come about with the double jeopardy law. Before, somebody could never

:02:34. > :02:39.be tried twice for the same crime but that changed in November last

:02:39. > :02:44.year. If there is new and compelling evidence of a crime

:02:44. > :02:48.which was not available at the time of the original trial, a new

:02:48. > :02:54.prosecution can be brought. It is my understanding that in this case,

:02:54. > :03:02.this is a case the police and Crown have looked at closely since the

:03:02. > :03:07.failure and embarrassing failure of the prosecution in 2007. I know

:03:07. > :03:12.they have used the latest forensic techniques, they have sent all the

:03:12. > :03:18.exhibits away and they have come up with brand new evidence. That

:03:18. > :03:23.evidence is new DNA. I understand Angus Sinclair's DNA, which has

:03:23. > :03:28.been found on the ligatures which were used to strangle the girls,

:03:28. > :03:33.the Crown will hope this will count as new and compelling evidence and

:03:33. > :03:36.will get it back to trials. should stress the compelling thing,

:03:36. > :03:44.because you cannot under this double jeopardy law, you cannot be

:03:44. > :03:48.tried again unless it goes to the Appeal Court. Explain that.

:03:48. > :03:54.process is that once the Crown has the evidence, it is satisfied with

:03:54. > :03:59.it, it must vent Llodra application to the Court of Appeal. The judges

:03:59. > :04:03.will look. It will almost be like a mini trial before the trial. They

:04:03. > :04:07.will look to see whether the evidence is compelling. My

:04:07. > :04:12.understanding is that application will be lodged within the next few

:04:12. > :04:17.weeks. Then we will know whether the appeal court judges have deemed

:04:17. > :04:22.it sufficient to put it forward for a retrial. Angus Sinclair, who is

:04:22. > :04:26.already a convicted killer and sex offender, he is in prison for an

:04:26. > :04:36.unconnected murder, but he has always denied the World's End

:04:36. > :04:36.

:04:36. > :04:42.killings. This has resonance because the double jeopardy rule,

:04:42. > :04:50.which might allow a retrial, was itself brought into law partly

:04:50. > :04:54.because of what happened in the original trial of. In 2007, many

:04:54. > :04:59.believe there was sufficient evidence to successfully prosecute

:04:59. > :05:05.Angus Sinclair. His seamen was found on the girls. But what his

:05:05. > :05:10.defence did was claimed that got there through consensual sex. There

:05:10. > :05:14.was additional DNA evidence which the prosecutor decided not to run

:05:14. > :05:18.and it was for that reason that many people believe the crown was

:05:18. > :05:23.at fault. It came out fighting after the failure of that

:05:23. > :05:27.prosecution, it provoked a furious row between the Crown and the judge

:05:27. > :05:33.between that case, Lord Hamilton. Failings in this case run very

:05:33. > :05:38.deeply. This is unfinished business as far as the crown is concerned.

:05:38. > :05:45.What do they say about this? Tonight, they would not talk about

:05:45. > :05:48.the detail of this new evidence, which we have revealed tonight, but

:05:48. > :05:52.they would confirm a new investigation was under way. They

:05:52. > :05:57.said they were committed to using these new powers under the double

:05:57. > :06:01.jeopardy legislation and were unable to comment on the status of

:06:01. > :06:04.the case. Thank you. Now, unemployment figures out today

:06:04. > :06:06.paint a continuing gloomy picture, if perhaps not as gloomy as

:06:06. > :06:09.expected. Scotland's unemployment increased at a slightly worse rate

:06:09. > :06:12.than the UK, but the percentage of people in work in Scotland remains

:06:12. > :06:16.higher than the UK. The most worrying of all statistics, north

:06:16. > :06:19.and south, is the rate of youth unemployment. The Scottish and UK

:06:19. > :06:29.governments are holding what they call a "youth jobs summit" in

:06:29. > :06:32.

:06:32. > :06:36.Dundee tomorrow to try to conjure That you at the Jobcentre has

:06:36. > :06:43.lengthened. The latest figures showed people looking for work rose

:06:43. > :06:51.by 6,000. UK unemployment stands at 8.4%, Scottish unemployment is 8.7%.

:06:51. > :06:54.The gap has widened slightly. The Scottish Government points out

:06:54. > :06:58.unemployment here is still not as bad as most other UK regions and

:06:58. > :07:03.nations but they have demanded more action from the Chancellor in next

:07:03. > :07:11.week's budget. The statistics also show the public sector employment

:07:11. > :07:15.has taken the brunt of the kit. They shrank by 3.9% up over a year,

:07:15. > :07:23.including the Royal Bank Of Scotland. The private sector also

:07:23. > :07:28.feels the need of support. Private sector jobs fell by 16,000 over the

:07:28. > :07:35.course of 2011. Private sector jobs grew by about under a 1,000 in that

:07:35. > :07:39.period. That disparity is worrying. -- under a 1,000. It reveals the

:07:40. > :07:47.private sector is where jobs are being created. We need to build on

:07:48. > :07:53.that growth. The Conservatives and Lib Dems hit out at the SNP is

:07:53. > :07:57.saying the so-called Plan B wasn't working. Labour said the First

:07:57. > :08:00.Minister was complacent and drew attention to the disproportionately

:08:00. > :08:03.large increase in unemployment among women.

:08:03. > :08:11.I'm joined now by the economist Professor David Bell, who

:08:11. > :08:14.specialises in employment matters. You have a theory, haven't you,

:08:14. > :08:18.that the performance of the Labour market in Scotland is rather worse

:08:19. > :08:22.than it would appear just by looking at the relative

:08:22. > :08:27.unemployment figures between Scotland and the UK. Explain that.

:08:28. > :08:33.The difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK is quite small

:08:33. > :08:37.but what has happened since the start of the recession is that

:08:37. > :08:41.employment has fallen more in Scotland and there has been more of

:08:41. > :08:45.an increase in part-time employment in Scotland. So the number of hours

:08:45. > :08:50.worked in Scotland has fallen proportionately more than in the

:08:50. > :08:55.rest of the UK but prison population has been growing less

:08:55. > :08:59.fast, -- but our population has been growing less fast. We have had

:08:59. > :09:04.a rapid increase in inactivity, people going out of the Labour

:09:04. > :09:07.market altogether. The unemployment rate actually is not the true

:09:07. > :09:12.measure of the state of the Labour market because there are other

:09:12. > :09:18.things going on, like the change in employment, which seems to be worse

:09:18. > :09:22.than in the rest of the UK. always compare Scotland with the

:09:22. > :09:26.rest of the UK. If you took out London and the South East of

:09:26. > :09:33.England, and compared Scotland with other regions of the UK, you might

:09:33. > :09:37.find it is not a typical. That is true. In terms of the unemployment

:09:37. > :09:41.rate, Scotland is pretty much around the middle, if you take all

:09:41. > :09:46.the nine regions of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland is

:09:46. > :09:52.in the middle of a. There is a particular worry about youth

:09:52. > :09:58.unemployment and there isn't any good news. No, there isn't. 100,000

:09:58. > :10:04.people unemployed, young people, almost one in four. It is not as

:10:04. > :10:09.bad as some places in Europe, but it is a very disturbing situation,

:10:09. > :10:15.in the sense there is no obvious solution that has come to light the

:10:15. > :10:20.thus far. You say there is no obvious solution because if you

:10:20. > :10:24.meet a minister from either the government in London or Edinburgh,

:10:24. > :10:28.they will produce from their pocket a plan to do something wonderful

:10:28. > :10:32.about youth unemployment. I am curious because we have had so many

:10:33. > :10:37.of these things over the years, and we have so many proposed and there

:10:37. > :10:45.will be more in drawled Osborne's budget, will they ever have any

:10:45. > :10:49.effect. If you look at the policies that ran during the 80s and 90s,

:10:49. > :10:57.the international consensus is that pretty much they achieved nothing.

:10:57. > :11:02.Nothing? No. No increase in jobs as a result of all the interventions

:11:02. > :11:09.that there was. The Nobel prizewinners, they take that fear.

:11:09. > :11:13.We may have got better -- they take that view. We may have gotten

:11:13. > :11:17.better and sophisticated, but unemployment in the UK and in

:11:17. > :11:23.Scotland has risen less in this recession than you would have

:11:23. > :11:28.expected. Given the fairly catastrophic in output. Whether

:11:28. > :11:34.this is because the government has got better at providing policies to

:11:34. > :11:39.help unemployed people back into work or is it because employers and

:11:39. > :11:46.employees are working better together to make sure that

:11:46. > :11:51.redundancies are avoided. That hasn't been resolved. There is also

:11:51. > :11:56.a possibility which is they have kept on Labour rather than laying

:11:56. > :12:02.it off because they thought it might be a quick recovery. Isn't it

:12:03. > :12:09.possible we might see, as with bankruptcy is, there will be a

:12:09. > :12:14.sharp jump in unemployment. That is possible. There is certainly a lot

:12:14. > :12:19.of slack. There has been a big drop in the number of hours worked. When

:12:19. > :12:29.the economy does pick up, there is no guarantee there will be a drop

:12:29. > :12:33.

:12:33. > :12:39.in unemployment. Maybe people work I want to come back to this thing

:12:39. > :12:44.about you employment. They were a defining characteristic of Tony

:12:44. > :12:48.Blair's Government. Gordon Brown would never go anywhere without a

:12:48. > :12:55.plan to create more jobs. You were saying there is no evidence of any

:12:55. > :13:00.of these having any effect. Is it because you effectively don't want

:13:00. > :13:06.to do the economic base, this demand in the economy so you come

:13:06. > :13:11.up with alternatives to it which is fiddling about on the edges? There

:13:11. > :13:17.are lots of seemingly commendable plans to increase apprentices for

:13:17. > :13:22.example. That will increase their human capital in the economy. But

:13:23. > :13:26.if there isn't any demand for the products the apprentices produced,

:13:26. > :13:34.then they are trained but there isn't necessarily any demand for

:13:34. > :13:39.them in a job. So these micro economics, way you Taylor, let's

:13:39. > :13:47.get young people into jobs, and a CD of the micro economics to do the

:13:47. > :13:52.demand for those people at the other end, are pretty hopeless?

:13:52. > :13:56.problem of unemployment in the last few years hasn't been caused by

:13:56. > :14:00.these micro-economic issues getting it wrong. There are supply problems

:14:00. > :14:05.with the economy but they did not cause the drop in output and they

:14:05. > :14:10.had not caused the increase in unemployment. Can I ask you about

:14:10. > :14:18.statistics? I am curious about the margin of error in all of these

:14:18. > :14:23.figures. A lot of them are based on samples. Can we really...

:14:23. > :14:30.Politicians say it is getting worse in Scotland because it is the SNP's

:14:30. > :14:34.fault. When you take the margins of Errors into account, can we say

:14:34. > :14:39.anything much more than probably unemployment has gone up a bit more

:14:39. > :14:45.in Britain and it may not all may have gone up a bit faster in

:14:45. > :14:51.Scotland and the rest of the UK but the analysis is a bit hit or miss?

:14:51. > :14:56.Ministers love to comment on small changes in these numbers. But, the

:14:57. > :15:02.fact is you have got around 80,000 people who are samples each quarter

:15:02. > :15:08.in the whole of the UK, out of a working population of 25 million.

:15:08. > :15:13.You have got to base your guess as to what is happening to the 20th at

:15:13. > :15:22.-- 25 million on the 25,000 you sample. So there are margins of

:15:22. > :15:27.error. So this conference between the Scottish and UK governments to

:15:27. > :15:32.create more jobs, your message is, don't hold your breath? There is

:15:32. > :15:37.always a point in making an searching for the solution. But,

:15:37. > :15:40.don't be surprised if it's still a long way away.

:15:40. > :15:43.Now, it's been a long time coming, but the Scottish Parliament today

:15:43. > :15:46.voted to support the government's bill on minimum pricing for alcohol.

:15:46. > :15:48.86 votes to zero, to be exact. There's still a fair bit of

:15:48. > :15:52.parliamentary procedure to come but minimum pricing looks like a

:15:52. > :15:55.certainty now and those who support it, and even those who didn't, are

:15:55. > :15:57.now looking ahead to see what else might be done to improve what's

:15:57. > :16:01.often called the nation's uncomfortable relationship with

:16:01. > :16:04.alcohol. What can we learn from the way other democracies have

:16:04. > :16:13.approached the problem? David Allison's report looks at Canada's

:16:13. > :16:20.recent experience of minimum pricing.

:16:20. > :16:25.Canada, a land of great open spaces and likes Godman, a difficult

:16:25. > :16:31.relationship with alcohol. Minimum pricing has been introduced and the

:16:31. > :16:36.signs are it has helped. There has been in direct evidence that if the

:16:36. > :16:41.whole population consumption goes down, all the related arms go down.

:16:41. > :16:47.But we have looked at alcohol related debts and hospital

:16:47. > :16:52.admissions and they have gone down. Significantly each time the minimum

:16:52. > :17:01.prices have been increased. Who is to say that what works in Canada

:17:01. > :17:07.will work here, and even certain kinds of alcohol are concerned with

:17:07. > :17:13.their own type of problems. There is a real concern this is a

:17:13. > :17:20.distraction, the wider story is as much, if not more of a problem.

:17:20. > :17:24.Today at Holyrood, MSPs with Labour abstaining, agreed to back the

:17:24. > :17:29.plans for minimum pricing. Scottish Government is not against

:17:29. > :17:34.alcohol, we're not against drinking, but we are very much against the

:17:34. > :17:40.problems associated with excessive consumption of alcohol. The hard

:17:40. > :17:46.fact is, over the years, Scotland's relationship with alcohol has got

:17:46. > :17:51.out of kilter and it needs to be re balanced. I think everybody accepts

:17:51. > :17:56.price is a fact. Even Labour accepts price is a factor and we

:17:56. > :18:01.are debating who gets the financial benefits. The debate is moving on

:18:01. > :18:06.to what next. We hope wants minimum pricing is resolved we can move the

:18:06. > :18:10.debate on further in changing culture. This is why we must not

:18:10. > :18:17.you minimum pricing in isolation, but a building block in a wider

:18:17. > :18:25.range of initiatives. We tried to amend the bill at that time about

:18:25. > :18:30.premixed alcohol, and America's ban was subsequent to that debate. And

:18:31. > :18:35.the support of other health specialists. A number of countries

:18:35. > :18:40.are concerned about the impact of alcohol and caffeine together.

:18:40. > :18:45.Caffeine acts as a stimulant while alcohol acts as a suppressant and

:18:45. > :18:49.leave you unaware of what level of intoxication you have. Canada has

:18:49. > :18:53.introduced labels so a so called energy drink like Red Bull over

:18:53. > :18:58.there will have a warning label saying don't mix this with alcohol.

:18:58. > :19:03.Sweden has gone down the same road. MSPs might be disappointed with

:19:03. > :19:08.results from Canada. The particular thing of putting the label on, it

:19:08. > :19:15.is a tiny step in the right direction. It hardly touch is the

:19:15. > :19:22.major problem, which is at parties and bars, people buy these products

:19:22. > :19:27.and mix them anyway. Or they don't read the labels. Riots in Vancouver

:19:27. > :19:31.after the local team lost in the Stanley Cup last June, showed

:19:31. > :19:34.Canada's difficult relationship with alcohol continues, even though

:19:34. > :19:42.they have gone further than Scotland by extending minimum

:19:42. > :19:49.pricing to pubs and bars. It tended to be at the low end, which was up

:19:49. > :19:59.to $3 for a standard Serb. So a glass of wine or a shot of spirits.

:19:59. > :19:59.

:19:59. > :20:05.In the bars, you get it for about �2. Unlike Scotland, there is no

:20:05. > :20:09.sunset clause in Canada's pricing experiment. And with some success

:20:09. > :20:19.and a few failures, they have plenty to teach us.

:20:19. > :20:20.

:20:20. > :20:30.Now a quick look at tomorrow's The Scotsman has the story about

:20:30. > :20:31.

:20:31. > :20:41.the world's end murders. A picture of Camilla or on the front.

:20:41. > :20:42.

:20:42. > :20:52.The Herald, Scots College facing foreign tuition.

:20:52. > :20:54.