Browse content similar to 12/12/2012. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Tonight on Newsnight Scotland: The government launches a | :00:10. | :00:13. | |
consultation on its same sex marriage bill. But what's the point, | :00:13. | :00:16. | |
when it ignored its own consultation on whether to have the | :00:16. | :00:20. | |
bill in the first place? And how does the bill compare with | :00:20. | :00:23. | |
same sex marriage proposals for England and Wales? On the face of | :00:23. | :00:26. | |
it, it's more liberal, but are attitudes here really any | :00:26. | :00:29. | |
different? Also tonight, fewer people are | :00:29. | :00:32. | |
unemployed, but there are fewer people in the workforce. We'll try | :00:32. | :00:37. | |
to explain the ever more mysterious employment figures. | :00:37. | :00:40. | |
Good evening. Yesterday, David Cameron gave the go-ahead for same | :00:40. | :00:43. | |
sex marriages in England. But the Church of England will be | :00:43. | :00:46. | |
specifically excluded by law. Today the Scottish government published | :00:46. | :00:49. | |
its plans to legislate. The Church of Scotland won't be specifically | :00:49. | :00:53. | |
excluded, although it will be able to choose whether to be in or out, | :00:53. | :00:56. | |
like every other church. Very few MSPs are opposed to same sex | :00:56. | :01:06. | |
:01:06. | :01:13. | ||
marriage. Are they in tune or out After the consultation on same-sex | :01:13. | :01:17. | |
marriage, the consultation on the bill. Same-sex marriage is broadly | :01:17. | :01:23. | |
speaking back to buy most MSPs, and all the major parties. But it is | :01:23. | :01:27. | |
opposed by the Church of Scotland, the Roman Catholic church and some | :01:27. | :01:30. | |
other religious groups. The government is trying to offer | :01:31. | :01:34. | |
reassurance. It is about a balance. You have | :01:34. | :01:38. | |
people of the same sex wanting to get married. On the other hand you | :01:38. | :01:42. | |
have people who are dates this of religious reasons. So what we are | :01:42. | :01:46. | |
doing is we are saying if you are in love and of the same sex, you | :01:46. | :01:50. | |
are free to marry. But if you are a religious organisation or a member | :01:50. | :01:54. | |
of the clergy and you don't want to participate in that, you have the | :01:54. | :01:59. | |
freedom not to. The Scottish government is always | :01:59. | :02:02. | |
insisting that nobody would be forced to conduct gay marriages. | :02:02. | :02:07. | |
Under the plans, religious and believe groups would be to opt in | :02:07. | :02:09. | |
to conduct them. The Scottish government is to work with | :02:09. | :02:17. | |
Westminster to make sure or are they so that don't conduct gay | :02:17. | :02:25. | |
marriages don't fall foul of equality laws. -- made sure that | :02:25. | :02:30. | |
organisations. We are still concerned, as a matter | :02:30. | :02:33. | |
of law, that the Scottish government can fulfil the promise | :02:33. | :02:39. | |
it has made to protect those whose genuinely held religious beliefs | :02:39. | :02:43. | |
mean that they can't support the proposals on same-sex marriage. | :02:43. | :02:53. | |
:02:53. | :03:11. | ||
The Catholic Church also has Same-sex marriage is also being | :03:11. | :03:15. | |
introduced south of the border, and there's in interesting difference | :03:15. | :03:19. | |
in the political debate. A significant number of Conservative | :03:19. | :03:26. | |
MPs are openly opposed. But here, the number of -- majority of Ennis | :03:26. | :03:35. | |
p support gay marriage. The leaders of all for -- four major parties | :03:35. | :03:38. | |
support the principle. One of the most prominent critics | :03:38. | :03:43. | |
has been the SNP's former leader, Gordon Wilson, who spoke at a | :03:43. | :03:46. | |
fringe meeting near the SNP conference. | :03:46. | :03:53. | |
The SNP government, for reasons I can't understand, has stumbled into | :03:53. | :03:59. | |
a difficulty that they should have avoided. As a nationalist, I find | :03:59. | :04:06. | |
it odd that, in the run-up to an independent referendum, the F -- | :04:06. | :04:13. | |
SNP adopted gay marriage, knowing that it would alienate many voters. | :04:13. | :04:23. | |
:04:23. | :04:23. | ||
A brilliant tactician! Did Gordon Wilson hit a point? By | :04:23. | :04:27. | |
think back to the year 2000 and the campaign against the repeal of | :04:27. | :04:32. | |
Section 28. We didn't vote for it and we are | :04:32. | :04:39. | |
not having it. Is there a social conservatism in | :04:39. | :04:49. | |
Scotland which is not represented in Holyrood. In any case, R N S B | :04:49. | :04:59. | |
:04:59. | :04:59. | ||
is supposed to lead public opinion Professor John Haldane of St | :04:59. | :05:01. | |
Andrews University's philosophy department is in Dundee. And the | :05:01. | :05:06. | |
writer and blogger Gerry Hassan is here in Glasgow. | :05:06. | :05:11. | |
And a curious as to what to make the difference between Scottish | :05:11. | :05:21. | |
:05:21. | :05:31. | ||
proposals and what is happening There's a similar effort to reach a | :05:31. | :05:34. | |
balance in England and Wales and Scotland. That is about the balance | :05:34. | :05:41. | |
between equality in the law of same-sex marriage and acknowledging | :05:41. | :05:46. | |
religious principle. What the David Cameron government seems to have | :05:46. | :05:50. | |
done is because there's such attention over a whole host of | :05:50. | :05:56. | |
things, they have leaned towards what is, I think, and illogical | :05:56. | :05:59. | |
compromise, basically, that runs a horse and cart through the | :05:59. | :06:05. | |
principle of equality. I am curious as to what you make. | :06:05. | :06:11. | |
Even if you are against gay sex -- same-sex marriage in principle, | :06:11. | :06:17. | |
there's a compromise way you say, well, we will make it legal but | :06:17. | :06:21. | |
illegal in the Church of England. Does that make sense to you? | :06:21. | :06:27. | |
It does when you think about the position of the Church of in and -- | :06:27. | :06:34. | |
of England as the established Church. What might be domestic law | :06:34. | :06:40. | |
for another denomination, the Church of England has statutory | :06:40. | :06:46. | |
status. It is tied in legally. The other aspect is that the Queen is | :06:46. | :06:51. | |
the head of the Church of England. She has her archbishops publicly | :06:51. | :06:58. | |
protesting this move towards implementation of same-sex marriage. | :06:58. | :07:04. | |
It would be difficult for her to sign this legislation. There's a | :07:04. | :07:11. | |
lot of delicacy being operated here. That doesn't have a counterpart in | :07:11. | :07:16. | |
Scotland. It is not an established church. | :07:16. | :07:26. | |
:07:26. | :07:26. | ||
Do you believe... Where does it leave the Scottish legislation? | :07:26. | :07:31. | |
It is trying to balance principles that are incompatible. One of the | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
things we need to acknowledge is how far Scotland has travelled. | :07:35. | :07:40. | |
What a lot of people don't remember is that in 1967, when male | :07:40. | :07:42. | |
homosexuality was decriminalised and it was decriminalised in | :07:42. | :07:52. | |
:07:52. | :07:55. | ||
England and Wales. We had a decriminalisation in 1980. Then we | :07:56. | :08:01. | |
had the court full-court was of Clause 28. -- then we have the | :08:01. | :08:08. | |
cultural wars. Now we can't talk about how far we have travelled or | :08:08. | :08:13. | |
allow people who have reservations to talk or air them in a language | :08:13. | :08:18. | |
where we are trying to aid equality. There's a way we are not | :08:18. | :08:26. | |
acknowledging how far we have Dear things Scottish society has | :08:26. | :08:33. | |
changed, John? -- do you think? That is an interesting question, | :08:33. | :08:41. | |
and it is difficult to answer. If you look at the politicians and the | :08:41. | :08:47. | |
common Terry at, they are so on representative in general of the | :08:47. | :08:55. | |
circumstances are people at large. -- and on representative. If you | :08:55. | :09:01. | |
reach the domestic newspapers, the so-called quality press, under 2% | :09:01. | :09:07. | |
are reading this newspaper has, so commentary there, who is reading | :09:07. | :09:13. | |
it? A tiny number of people, we are essentially talking to ourselves. | :09:13. | :09:17. | |
One indicator might be better when they had a consultation on having a | :09:17. | :09:24. | |
bill at all, the majority of respondents were against it. Having | :09:24. | :09:27. | |
made a big fuss about it consultation, they ignored it | :09:27. | :09:31. | |
because it was just the wrong answer! That is an issue about | :09:31. | :09:35. | |
which many have complained. The consultation happens daily on one | :09:35. | :09:41. | |
thing or another, so the general population are not interested. I | :09:41. | :09:44. | |
responded to a number of consultations on a range of issues, | :09:44. | :09:49. | |
arts funding, all sorts of things, it tends to be the same kinds of | :09:49. | :09:53. | |
people that but in a response, campaign groups, interested | :09:53. | :09:58. | |
individuals, activists and so on. Most of this does not touch | :09:58. | :10:04. | |
ordinary people. The Resi deeper, more pervasive problem. -- there is | :10:04. | :10:09. | |
a deeper. We saw the introduction of bills in Westminster on voting | :10:09. | :10:13. | |
procedures on the election of police commissioners and so on, and | :10:13. | :10:18. | |
what we see in response to this, as this is an indication of public | :10:18. | :10:24. | |
interest, plummeting voting figures. I would like to see the next | :10:24. | :10:28. | |
Scottish election what it would be like, there will be a lower turnout. | :10:28. | :10:33. | |
There is a gap turning up. This around argument that if you are | :10:33. | :10:37. | |
genuine objections to same-sex marriage and you look at the | :10:37. | :10:40. | |
Scottish Parliament as opposed to the Westminster Parliament, in | :10:40. | :10:46. | |
Westminster, there is a phalanx of MPs saying this will not pass if we | :10:46. | :10:50. | |
can stop out, if you look at the Scottish Parliament, you have got | :10:50. | :10:54. | |
eight out of the entire Parliament, you are entitled to feel that this | :10:54. | :10:58. | |
Parliament, maybe it represents some people, but it does not | :10:58. | :11:04. | |
represent me! Write about newspapers, write about commentary, | :11:04. | :11:10. | |
there is evidence that Scotland is much more conservative than England | :11:10. | :11:15. | |
and it is broadly in line now. We have changed much more. It is much | :11:16. | :11:23. | |
more tolerant, diverse, but that diversity is about a narrower set | :11:23. | :11:27. | |
of issues, a cosmopolitan democracy but does not threaten people in the | :11:28. | :11:34. | |
European debate. Doesn't John's point mean that Europe is the other | :11:34. | :11:37. | |
classic wine, if you look at that Parliament in Westminster, there is | :11:38. | :11:42. | |
a huge division of views within and between parties, and if you look | :11:42. | :11:49. | |
year, on the question of Europe, the Conservatives might represent a | :11:49. | :11:54. | |
more Euro-sceptic tradition, but the vast majority say the European | :11:54. | :11:59. | |
Union is fine. That's right, this is not an issue about same-sex | :11:59. | :12:05. | |
marriage, I do not think that is a particular pivotal one on this, the | :12:05. | :12:09. | |
wider issues are that there are a set of things that concern people | :12:09. | :12:16. | |
in everyday life that a complicated, Unionism, nationalism, and stay do | :12:17. | :12:20. | |
not represent a cosmopolitan, and lead, liberal view the way that | :12:20. | :12:25. | |
some of the media interprets the census figures, like immigration | :12:25. | :12:31. | |
being good, and class etc. counter to this would be to say | :12:31. | :12:35. | |
that if people that genuinely objective to same-sex marriage or | :12:35. | :12:38. | |
membership of the European Union were to form political parties on | :12:38. | :12:41. | |
those issues and stand in the Scottish election, they probably | :12:41. | :12:49. | |
would not get very far? probably true, but if you remember | :12:49. | :12:54. | |
when Parliament has been set up, and the system would allow a space | :12:54. | :12:57. | |
for independence and committees would exert a degree of | :12:58. | :13:02. | |
independence and we have seen that the list systems are in the service | :13:02. | :13:07. | |
of the main parties. It is a problem in the left and on the | :13:07. | :13:11. | |
right that political parties have migrated from traditional positions, | :13:11. | :13:16. | |
so the Labour Party in Scotland tended to be socially conservative | :13:16. | :13:19. | |
and economic the radical and the Conservative Party has migrated | :13:19. | :13:24. | |
from the standard positions and so on, and there are a large number of | :13:24. | :13:30. | |
people turning away because it does not interest them. Is this not a | :13:30. | :13:35. | |
problem that is more aggravated at Holyrood then it is at Westminster? | :13:35. | :13:40. | |
Given what we have mentioned on Europe and same-sex marriage, the | :13:40. | :13:45. | |
receipt huge split a cross-party cent within parties. The big | :13:45. | :13:52. | |
problem is that the or is a lack of ambition. There are two handfuls of | :13:52. | :13:57. | |
able people there, but for the most part, it looks like the regional | :13:57. | :14:02. | |
council, but while Westminster is still a stage in which people can | :14:03. | :14:07. | |
move, Scottish politicians and the more stable of them will migrate | :14:07. | :14:11. | |
south, that is an obvious fact. You need to look at the front benches | :14:11. | :14:15. | |
of the two main parties and the Liberal Democrats also. It is a | :14:15. | :14:19. | |
problem, and I do not know what is to be done about this, but I hope | :14:19. | :14:25. | |
Parliament will mature, but as it stands, it is disappointing. I do | :14:25. | :14:29. | |
not want to turn this into a plea for more reactionaries in the | :14:29. | :14:33. | |
Scottish Parliament, but there is on more social issues, public | :14:33. | :14:40. | |
sector reform, all of the parties are much more the same than they | :14:40. | :14:44. | |
are at the British level. That is all true, I do not buy the point | :14:44. | :14:49. | |
that Westminster is this great model, I think it is broken, we had | :14:49. | :14:57. | |
the biggest expenses scandal in modern history, the dilemmas are | :14:57. | :15:01. | |
not reflected here. That is due in Westminster and in Scotland, in | :15:01. | :15:07. | |
their Parliaments. Thank you. We said last month that politicians | :15:07. | :15:11. | |
compare unemployment statistics on a month-to-month basis to see if | :15:11. | :15:16. | |
Scotland is doing better than the UK. Unemployment is down everywhere | :15:16. | :15:19. | |
but Scotland is slightly better than the rest. The number of people | :15:20. | :15:23. | |
employed in Scotland has also decreased. | :15:23. | :15:28. | |
In July to September unemployment in Scotland rose as far as a print | :15:28. | :15:36. | |
1%. Unemployment for the wide UK was down. -- as far as 8.1 %. This | :15:36. | :15:40. | |
is what we said one month ago. The graphic shows that unemployment | :15:40. | :15:43. | |
rates are similar to those elsewhere continues for another | :15:43. | :15:48. | |
month. This time, unemployment in Scotland is slightly lower than the | :15:48. | :15:52. | |
UK average, but without any particular explanation our | :15:52. | :15:57. | |
rationale. The number of job seekers has gone down also. The | :15:57. | :15:59. | |
downside for the Scottish Government is that employment is | :15:59. | :16:05. | |
down, effectively, the size of the workforce has shrunk. There are | :16:05. | :16:09. | |
still challenge is in the Scottish economy, I would be the first to | :16:09. | :16:12. | |
accept that point and the unemployment position is certainly | :16:12. | :16:17. | |
improving. We yet have the largest fall in unemployment in any quarter | :16:17. | :16:22. | |
since the spring of 2008. We had the welcome fall in youth | :16:22. | :16:25. | |
unemployment, but we have got to continue our efforts to push the | :16:25. | :16:31. | |
employment base within Scotland. is obvious because more people have | :16:31. | :16:35. | |
left the workforce then joined its possibly because more people are | :16:35. | :16:38. | |
retiring then young people starting out, or because workless people | :16:38. | :16:45. | |
give up looking for work for a variety of other reasons. | :16:45. | :16:49. | |
We are joined by Professor David Bell, maybe it is over-egging it by | :16:49. | :16:53. | |
saying this is becoming a thriller, but it is a genuine mistake. John | :16:53. | :16:56. | |
Swinney pointed out that the biggest fall for ages in | :16:56. | :17:00. | |
unemployment, but he forgot to mention that Scotland had the | :17:00. | :17:05. | |
biggest fall in employment of any area of the UK. How can these two | :17:05. | :17:09. | |
things go together? It is effectively what was said earlier, | :17:09. | :17:15. | |
people are perhaps dropping out of the labour market, perhaps students | :17:15. | :17:18. | |
that his side when asked the question by the survey that they | :17:18. | :17:21. | |
are not traded looking for work, they are concentrated on their | :17:21. | :17:26. | |
studies, or maybe people retiring earlier than we would expect them | :17:26. | :17:32. | |
to, it may also be that migrant workers are going back to Eastern | :17:32. | :17:36. | |
Europe or perhaps people are migrating from Scotland, but it | :17:36. | :17:43. | |
looks like the overall size or the overall number of people looking | :17:43. | :17:51. | |
for work or Ian Breckin Scotland is definitely been contracting. | :17:51. | :17:55. | |
should point out that the ON ness that compiles these figures, they | :17:55. | :18:01. | |
say about it may be down to a sampling area, but they do not know | :18:02. | :18:08. | |
if it is or not. -- sampling error in the Office of National | :18:08. | :18:11. | |
Statistics. I understand everything that you have said, but it is | :18:11. | :18:15. | |
difficult why this would apply to Scotland more than or exclusively, | :18:16. | :18:22. | |
rather than other UK area is. The figures for the rest of the UK, if | :18:22. | :18:28. | |
you look at the changed over the next 12 months, there is almost | :18:28. | :18:33. | |
470,000 extra jobs Indian bend, there are about 40,000 more in | :18:33. | :18:42. | |
Wales. -- extra jobs in England. There doesn't appear to be serious | :18:42. | :18:47. | |
job generation going on. You have got some Labour inactivity figures | :18:47. | :18:52. | |
for Scotland, people that report themselves as no longer in work or | :18:52. | :18:57. | |
looking for work, tell us about that? People drop out for all kinds | :18:57. | :19:07. | |
:19:07. | :19:08. | ||
of reasons. They decide that may be they would like to retire or they | :19:08. | :19:13. | |
decide... The figures this month of was to count for the entire | :19:13. | :19:18. | |
increase in the UK? Penumbra people dropping out of the labour market | :19:18. | :19:24. | |
this month in Scotland and the number dropping out in GB as a | :19:24. | :19:28. | |
whole are always the same. -- the number of people dropping out of | :19:28. | :19:33. | |
the labour market. It seemed slightly differed close to | :19:33. | :19:37. | |
determine literally. Yes, there are sampling errors around these | :19:37. | :19:43. | |
numbers. Coming down to what specifically could be happening, | :19:43. | :19:47. | |
could there be, for example you mentioned migrant workers, could | :19:47. | :19:52. | |
they be going home to eastern Europe from Scotland at a higher | :19:52. | :19:59. | |
rate than they are from other areas in the south-east? None of these | :19:59. | :20:04. | |
areas are clear, there is a lot of depressing news around. We have | :20:04. | :20:10. | |
heard about these. If we can fully explain this contrast, it seems to | :20:10. | :20:15. | |
me that there is still more investigation to be done. Just | :20:15. | :20:19. | |
briefly on some other statistics, gross value adding, GDP figures for | :20:19. | :20:25. | |
last year, four regions of the UK and this with them into sub regions, | :20:25. | :20:30. | |
and the only sub Regent and the entire UK were GDP last year fell | :20:30. | :20:38. | |
was East of Scotland. Very briefly, why? Possibly a weaker year for the | :20:38. | :20:42. | |
oil, possibly a downturn in the financial services brought about by | :20:42. | :20:46. | |
difficulties of two major banks, but still pretty difficult to fully | :20:46. | :20:52. |