14/03/2012 Newsnight Scotland

by the BBC's school report. You can catch him again of them.

-- catch him again then. Tonight on Newsnight Scotland, the

Crown Office says the police are once again on the case of the

World's End murders. We'll ask if what they call "new, compelling

evidence of guilt" is on the way this time round, after 34 years.

Unemployment is still getting worse. Can governments do anything

meaningful to avoid a lost generation of youth?

And minimum pricing is on the way, but the Canadian example suggests

there's still more to do to resolve the nation's problems with booze

once and for all. Good evening. First tonight, a

story which only a few years ago would have been quite impossible.

This afternoon, the Crown Office confirmed that it has instructed

Lothian and Borders Police to carry out new investigations into the

murders of Christine Eadie and Helen Scott, which took place in

1977. A man called Angus Sinclair, a convicted killer, was acquitted

of their murder in 2007. I'm joined by our investigations correspondent

Mark Daly. He broke the story today. First of

all, remind us about this case. This is a case that resonated in

Scotland. Christine Eadie and Hama were innocent teenage girls,

enjoying a Saturday night in World's End pub in 19 is under

seven. They left the pub at 11pm. They were accompanied by two

unidentified male's. They were never seen alive again but found

murdered the next day. They had been strangled using items of their

own clothing and there began a murder hunt spanning decades and

what became one of Scotland's most notorious double murders. It took

30 years before his suspect was identified. That was Angus Sinclair.

He stood trial, as we heard, in 2007, but the case collapsed. There

is bitter recriminations about how it was handled, the case. As the

law stood back then, there was a chance he could be brought back to

trial. If there is growing to be a retrial, what is your understanding

of the new evidence? Firstly, it might be useful to say how it might

come about with the double jeopardy law. Before, somebody could never

be tried twice for the same crime but that changed in November last

year. If there is new and compelling evidence of a crime

which was not available at the time of the original trial, a new

prosecution can be brought. It is my understanding that in this case,

this is a case the police and Crown have looked at closely since the

failure and embarrassing failure of the prosecution in 2007. I know

they have used the latest forensic techniques, they have sent all the

exhibits away and they have come up with brand new evidence. That

evidence is new DNA. I understand Angus Sinclair's DNA, which has

been found on the ligatures which were used to strangle the girls,

the Crown will hope this will count as new and compelling evidence and

will get it back to trials. should stress the compelling thing,

because you cannot under this double jeopardy law, you cannot be

tried again unless it goes to the Appeal Court. Explain that.

process is that once the Crown has the evidence, it is satisfied with

it, it must vent Llodra application to the Court of Appeal. The judges

will look. It will almost be like a mini trial before the trial. They

will look to see whether the evidence is compelling. My

understanding is that application will be lodged within the next few

weeks. Then we will know whether the appeal court judges have deemed

it sufficient to put it forward for a retrial. Angus Sinclair, who is

already a convicted killer and sex offender, he is in prison for an

unconnected murder, but he has always denied the World's End

killings. This has resonance because the double jeopardy rule,

which might allow a retrial, was itself brought into law partly

because of what happened in the original trial of. In 2007, many

believe there was sufficient evidence to successfully prosecute

Angus Sinclair. His seamen was found on the girls. But what his

defence did was claimed that got there through consensual sex. There

was additional DNA evidence which the prosecutor decided not to run

and it was for that reason that many people believe the crown was

at fault. It came out fighting after the failure of that

prosecution, it provoked a furious row between the Crown and the judge

between that case, Lord Hamilton. Failings in this case run very

deeply. This is unfinished business as far as the crown is concerned.

What do they say about this? Tonight, they would not talk about

the detail of this new evidence, which we have revealed tonight, but

they would confirm a new investigation was under way. They

said they were committed to using these new powers under the double

jeopardy legislation and were unable to comment on the status of

the case. Thank you. Now, unemployment figures out today

paint a continuing gloomy picture, if perhaps not as gloomy as

expected. Scotland's unemployment increased at a slightly worse rate

than the UK, but the percentage of people in work in Scotland remains

higher than the UK. The most worrying of all statistics, north

and south, is the rate of youth unemployment. The Scottish and UK

governments are holding what they call a "youth jobs summit" in

Dundee tomorrow to try to conjure That you at the Jobcentre has

lengthened. The latest figures showed people looking for work rose

by 6,000. UK unemployment stands at 8.4%, Scottish unemployment is 8.7%.

The gap has widened slightly. The Scottish Government points out

unemployment here is still not as bad as most other UK regions and

nations but they have demanded more action from the Chancellor in next

week's budget. The statistics also show the public sector employment

has taken the brunt of the kit. They shrank by 3.9% up over a year,

including the Royal Bank Of Scotland. The private sector also

feels the need of support. Private sector jobs fell by 16,000 over the

course of 2011. Private sector jobs grew by about under a 1,000 in that

period. That disparity is worrying. -- under a 1,000. It reveals the

private sector is where jobs are being created. We need to build on

that growth. The Conservatives and Lib Dems hit out at the SNP is

saying the so-called Plan B wasn't working. Labour said the First

Minister was complacent and drew attention to the disproportionately

large increase in unemployment among women.

I'm joined now by the economist Professor David Bell, who

specialises in employment matters. You have a theory, haven't you,

that the performance of the Labour market in Scotland is rather worse

than it would appear just by looking at the relative

unemployment figures between Scotland and the UK. Explain that.

The difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK is quite small

but what has happened since the start of the recession is that

employment has fallen more in Scotland and there has been more of

an increase in part-time employment in Scotland. So the number of hours

worked in Scotland has fallen proportionately more than in the

rest of the UK but prison population has been growing less

fast, -- but our population has been growing less fast. We have had

a rapid increase in inactivity, people going out of the Labour

market altogether. The unemployment rate actually is not the true

measure of the state of the Labour market because there are other

things going on, like the change in employment, which seems to be worse

than in the rest of the UK. always compare Scotland with the

rest of the UK. If you took out London and the South East of

England, and compared Scotland with other regions of the UK, you might

find it is not a typical. That is true. In terms of the unemployment

rate, Scotland is pretty much around the middle, if you take all

the nine regions of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland is

in the middle of a. There is a particular worry about youth

unemployment and there isn't any good news. No, there isn't. 100,000

people unemployed, young people, almost one in four. It is not as

bad as some places in Europe, but it is a very disturbing situation,

in the sense there is no obvious solution that has come to light the

thus far. You say there is no obvious solution because if you

meet a minister from either the government in London or Edinburgh,

they will produce from their pocket a plan to do something wonderful

about youth unemployment. I am curious because we have had so many

of these things over the years, and we have so many proposed and there

will be more in drawled Osborne's budget, will they ever have any

effect. If you look at the policies that ran during the 80s and 90s,

the international consensus is that pretty much they achieved nothing.

Nothing? No. No increase in jobs as a result of all the interventions

that there was. The Nobel prizewinners, they take that fear.

We may have got better -- they take that view. We may have gotten

better and sophisticated, but unemployment in the UK and in

Scotland has risen less in this recession than you would have

expected. Given the fairly catastrophic in output. Whether

this is because the government has got better at providing policies to

help unemployed people back into work or is it because employers and

employees are working better together to make sure that

redundancies are avoided. That hasn't been resolved. There is also

a possibility which is they have kept on Labour rather than laying

it off because they thought it might be a quick recovery. Isn't it

possible we might see, as with bankruptcy is, there will be a

sharp jump in unemployment. That is possible. There is certainly a lot

of slack. There has been a big drop in the number of hours worked. When

the economy does pick up, there is no guarantee there will be a drop

in unemployment. Maybe people work I want to come back to this thing

about you employment. They were a defining characteristic of Tony

Blair's Government. Gordon Brown would never go anywhere without a

plan to create more jobs. You were saying there is no evidence of any

of these having any effect. Is it because you effectively don't want

to do the economic base, this demand in the economy so you come

up with alternatives to it which is fiddling about on the edges? There

are lots of seemingly commendable plans to increase apprentices for

example. That will increase their human capital in the economy. But

if there isn't any demand for the products the apprentices produced,

then they are trained but there isn't necessarily any demand for

them in a job. So these micro economics, way you Taylor, let's

get young people into jobs, and a CD of the micro economics to do the

demand for those people at the other end, are pretty hopeless?

problem of unemployment in the last few years hasn't been caused by

these micro-economic issues getting it wrong. There are supply problems

with the economy but they did not cause the drop in output and they

had not caused the increase in unemployment. Can I ask you about

statistics? I am curious about the margin of error in all of these

figures. A lot of them are based on samples. Can we really...

Politicians say it is getting worse in Scotland because it is the SNP's

fault. When you take the margins of Errors into account, can we say

anything much more than probably unemployment has gone up a bit more

in Britain and it may not all may have gone up a bit faster in

Scotland and the rest of the UK but the analysis is a bit hit or miss?

Ministers love to comment on small changes in these numbers. But, the

fact is you have got around 80,000 people who are samples each quarter

in the whole of the UK, out of a working population of 25 million.

You have got to base your guess as to what is happening to the 20th at

-- 25 million on the 25,000 you sample. So there are margins of

error. So this conference between the Scottish and UK governments to

create more jobs, your message is, don't hold your breath? There is

always a point in making an searching for the solution. But,

don't be surprised if it's still a long way away.

Now, it's been a long time coming, but the Scottish Parliament today

voted to support the government's bill on minimum pricing for alcohol.

86 votes to zero, to be exact. There's still a fair bit of

parliamentary procedure to come but minimum pricing looks like a

certainty now and those who support it, and even those who didn't, are

now looking ahead to see what else might be done to improve what's

often called the nation's uncomfortable relationship with

alcohol. What can we learn from the way other democracies have

approached the problem? David Allison's report looks at Canada's

recent experience of minimum pricing.

Canada, a land of great open spaces and likes Godman, a difficult

relationship with alcohol. Minimum pricing has been introduced and the

signs are it has helped. There has been in direct evidence that if the

whole population consumption goes down, all the related arms go down.

But we have looked at alcohol related debts and hospital

admissions and they have gone down. Significantly each time the minimum

prices have been increased. Who is to say that what works in Canada

will work here, and even certain kinds of alcohol are concerned with

their own type of problems. There is a real concern this is a

distraction, the wider story is as much, if not more of a problem.

Today at Holyrood, MSPs with Labour abstaining, agreed to back the

plans for minimum pricing. Scottish Government is not against

alcohol, we're not against drinking, but we are very much against the

problems associated with excessive consumption of alcohol. The hard

fact is, over the years, Scotland's relationship with alcohol has got

out of kilter and it needs to be re balanced. I think everybody accepts

price is a fact. Even Labour accepts price is a factor and we

are debating who gets the financial benefits. The debate is moving on

to what next. We hope wants minimum pricing is resolved we can move the

debate on further in changing culture. This is why we must not

you minimum pricing in isolation, but a building block in a wider

range of initiatives. We tried to amend the bill at that time about

premixed alcohol, and America's ban was subsequent to that debate. And

the support of other health specialists. A number of countries

are concerned about the impact of alcohol and caffeine together.

Caffeine acts as a stimulant while alcohol acts as a suppressant and

leave you unaware of what level of intoxication you have. Canada has

introduced labels so a so called energy drink like Red Bull over

there will have a warning label saying don't mix this with alcohol.

Sweden has gone down the same road. MSPs might be disappointed with

results from Canada. The particular thing of putting the label on, it

is a tiny step in the right direction. It hardly touch is the

major problem, which is at parties and bars, people buy these products

and mix them anyway. Or they don't read the labels. Riots in Vancouver

after the local team lost in the Stanley Cup last June, showed

Canada's difficult relationship with alcohol continues, even though

they have gone further than Scotland by extending minimum

pricing to pubs and bars. It tended to be at the low end, which was up

to $3 for a standard Serb. So a glass of wine or a shot of spirits.

In the bars, you get it for about �2. Unlike Scotland, there is no

sunset clause in Canada's pricing experiment. And with some success

and a few failures, they have plenty to teach us.

Now a quick look at tomorrow's The Scotsman has the story about

the world's end murders. A picture of Camilla or on the front.

The Herald, Scots College facing foreign tuition.