06/02/2013 Newsnight Scotland

involved in the cover up. They should never work in public office

Tonight: The government's budget for next year has been passed. The

finance sector is conjuring up more money for schools and housing. And

we are to have a network of charge 0.4 electric cars. -- a network of

charges for electric cars. Good evening. Lots of big numbers were

floating around Parliament today. The biggest of the lot was �30

billion, the size of the Budget that John Swinney has had to play

with. Its real value is falling as the UK wide spending cuts kick in.

�61 billion, that is how much Mr Swinney has vowed to give two

Further Education over the next three years. Big cuts to the

funding had caused lots of problems in recent months. The cash will

ensure that the cut will be less severe than first envisaged. Here

are two small numbers. 68, the number of MSPs who supported the

Budget, and 56, the number of voters who voted against. We will

be speaking to Mr Swinney about what he called a budget for growth.

We are building on our original spending plans, having listened to

the views of Parliament and the country, and are delivering extra

funding for housing, creating jobs and cutting emissions. Funding to

regenerate town centres and investment in our trouble that work.

This -- in our trouble at work. I commend this to Parliament and to

the people of Scotland. Even if we look at this Budget as the worst of

the Tory cuts and are not as an engine for growth, it would do

nothing to protect the Scottish people. -- and not as an engine for

growth. The net effect will be the same. Cuts to public services.

is a government that has at its disposable -- disposal, �7 million

more this year than it had it next year -- this year than it had last

year. Therefore, any cuts or changes that we make our political

choices of the SNP. They do not like its -- they do not like it,

but the choices are entirely theirs. Last year I think we made quite a

bit of progress at reversing the �40 million cut to the college

budget. This year, Our ambition was to rid her -- restore �35 million

of cuts. Those cuts would have had significant effects on our colleges.

Expecting them to reform in a period of contraction is very

difficult, which is why I found it astonishing that there was a

celebration on the benches, the SNP benches, when a cut of �25 million

was announced. That is nothing to celebrate. Just before we came on

air, John Swinney came to error Dundee studio. I asked him first

with the additional cash is coming from. -- came to our Dundee studio.

�10 million will come from consequent of funding that has come

from us from the UK -- come to us from the UK government. We had to

that the Budget from the original one that was in place. The decision

will have to come from decisions that by making the preparations for

the Budget coming up, which will be concluded in September, and that

will be -- that will mean... Obviously, the September but it

will show a change of plans to take into account the fact... It is

coming from a change, from two sources. One is the change that

Scottish water has put in place for its investment programme. Contract

will prices have been coming in at a lower level than anticipated. --

contractual prices. Also, the investments that we had expected to

have to fund in Grenoble in -- renewable energy are taking longer

to come through. When you reallocate this money next year,

you will of course be reminded of your lectures to opposition parties.

They will ask where the money will come from. We can expect a full and

frank from you? I have balanced the budget six years in a row and I

have seen every bit of public expenditure has come from. I have

no intention of breaking that standard. I am sure the viewers

will note that you have got millions of pounds of an allocated

funds to stick into colleges when you are constantly telling us how

terrible the British government's cuts are. This is an allocated

money that you are getting from the British government. Yes, but it is

�10 million. But keep a sense of perspective. The important thing to

remember, the main point that I have made to the UK government, has

been about the draconian cuts to capital expenditure that they have

been taken. -- taking. The UK government has been rolling back

from the savage cuts they have made a capital spending. OK. The number

of students in Further Education colleges has fallen by something

like 60,000 since he came into power in 2007. Are you proud of

that? What I am proud of that... The but are you part of that?

proud of the fact that we said we would maintain student numbers at

the level of 116,000, which was the full-time equivalents. That means

that we have had a shift from the number of students to have come

through the door of colleges. They are better equipped for work.

time equivalents is a bureaucratic term. These are real people. Surely

it is better to have young people studying in college and possibly

being on the dole during a recession. You have cut real people,

not these full-time employees, by about 60,000. Are you proud of

that? We have a guaranteed to every young person in this country that

if they cannot find a place in college or in a training

establishment or in work, the government will help them to do

that and will guarantee that they get a place. That guarantee exists

for every person between the ages of 16 and 19 in this country. This

is not some bureaucratic nonsense that you refer to. What it is is a

recognition that young people need substantial courses to enable them

to access work. That is why we have shifted resources away from some of

the part-time courses in two more substantial learning that better

equips young people to get into the labour market and to find

sustainable employment. That is the sustainable shift that we have made.

I am proud of that. You are always telling us about tough choices. You

have made them. You are always telling us about how the MSPs want

a social democratic government. Why is a social democratic to have

60,000 fewer college students? Middle-class people still get free

bus passes. It is cutting something like �200 million a year, I think.

If you could recoup even a quarter of that, you could restore the cuts

you have made a Further Education colleges and more. The travel

scheme has got many attributes. It provides social mobility. That is

more important than having students in Further Education colleges?

agree with you on the importance of the Further Education policy, which

is ensuring that young people are given a guarantee that they will

have a training place or employment opportunity in Scotland. That is a

guarantee that is made available to date to every young citizen of our

country. -- made available today. We are equipping young people with

sub-standard training and skills to enable them to go into the label

market. -- substantial of training. This is the right focus we should

take folk -- forward. The non- profit distributing model which had

so many high hopes for, the value of this investment this year was

projected at �350 million, and it is now going to be �20 million. Is

that something you are proud of? What I am proud of is that, in the

face of a very substantial reduction in capital expenditure,

which would have resulted in a cancellation of a number of

strategic projects and Scotland, we have brought forward a model which

enables us to support these projects. The projects have taken

on -- longer to take to procurement than anybody would have liked, but

what is happening is that we now have �1.6 billion of contracts in

The projection for 2013 is �338 million. The following year,

instead of the Mick -- the prediction will be in excess of

�900 million. The point I am making is that it is taking these projects

longer to get into procurement so it will take longer for the

projects to be delivered on the ground. The alternative to that

would be to follow the UK Government's agenda and cancel

range of capital investment projects and I was not prepared to

do that. We are making every endeavour to get that work

undertaken as quickly and effectively as we can.

What would you -- make you buy an electric car? A commitment to

tackling climate change, a government subsidy or just the

knowledge that you will arrive your destination before your car runs

out of energy? We have been looking at the latest plan to tackle that

particular road block to electric car ownership.

Easily outnumbered and drowned out by engine noise. It is a sight that

remains relatively unusual on Scotland's roads and the Scottish

government have identified them as a key part of their vision for

LOCOG and future, convincing people to take the plunge has been easier

said than done. Too expensive is just one of the complaints levelled

against electric vehicles. Another thing that can put -- put people

off is their concern about whether or not it will get them where they

want to go. It is a specific condition called range anxiety and

the cure can be found here. planted in like any circuit. --

plug it in. How long would that take? About seven hours to give the

car a full charge. Now similar charging points are said to be

installed throughout Scotland's road network and Scots are being

offered free installation for charges. The idea is that an

electric car on a trunk road will never have to travel more than 50

miles to plug in. People will see this as a viable alternative. We

are also investigating hydrogen powered vehicles and others but

this is a vital part of the mix in reducing our carbon footprint. This

is a high-performance car but nonetheless an electric car. For an

80,000 pound test car to be precise, an eye-catching way to advertise

the complete removal of carbon from our roads by 2050. It costs about

three pence per mile in an electric -- electric vehicle. About 16p for

regular vehicle. You can get a Mitsubishi for �13,000 or so brand-

new from the shower room. Something but those who backed the steam car

all those years ago would say is, the question whether it will be

motoring into the future or left stranded on history's hard shoulder.

Four I am joined by Neil Greig, from the Institute of Advanced

Motorists. These charging points, are they going to be the fast ones

or the slow ones. You can charge these things in about 12 minutes?

You can do. It is good to have both. This gives people the chance to

think about their -- there driving in the future and makes electric

cars more than option. �2.5 million is not going to transform the

transport network. That he is the free installation at home. These

cars are aimed at short journeys. - - the key is the free installation.

The other thing is, of -- what to has a trunk road? Is it any A or

Roeder? -- A Road. We are never going to have the same road network

as we have for petrol and diesel cars. Presumably some day you could

have, if these things became the norm? People don't know yet which

technology will win out, we have hybrid cars, hydrogen cars. If you

are deciding now to buy a car, do you know what it will be like in

five years' time? What is the answer to that question you have

raised? Surely it is more the infrastructure. If the

infrastructure is there, it might still be worth buying for five

years. It is a start, we need the network in place. In 10, 20 years

we are still going to be using fossil fuels in most of our

vehicles. The value of a hybrid is that if the battery goes flat you

still have petrol to keep you going the last few miles. Hydrogen cars

seem to be the way that a lot of manufacturers are going. Some of

the manufacturers, like Toyota, actually stopped making an electric

only vehicle because they found they could not sell them around the

world. Can you buy a hydrogen car? Not yet, but ultimately hydrogen

will take over. But they are still rather expensive compared to

mainstream models. FE even with the hybrid cars, people say that if you

buy a new one you are not going to recoup the extra money with your

fuel savings. It depends on the mileage. We need all public bodies

to be buying electric cars. Then that establishes a market and

perhaps the public will move towards it. To be clear, you think

hydrogen is the car of the future? Yes, but for the next 10, 20 years

hybrid is the way to go. Let's start with the Scotsman for the

front pages. Another day of shame for Britain's banks. RBS is fined

millions of pounds for fixing interest rates. The Financial Times,

interest rate fixing scandal shakes three continents. Underneath that,

George Osborne urges Bank of England to take action in push for

growth. The Scottish Daily Mail, a rise of the child criminals as

young as three years old. The Guardian, Cameron's prescription

for NHS misses targets. That is all It is the coldest night of the week

so far with a widespread frost. Temperatures at or below freezing

across northern England and the Midlands. Still a few of these

sleet or snow showers but they will eventually he's away. -- he's away.

There will be high cloud increasing due to a weather system from the

Atlantic. One or two showers affecting the north and west of

Wales. They will leave some icy patches. But cloud is thickening

for Northern Ireland and rain at not too far away. Still some icy

patches to contend with in Scotland. The rest of the day, cloud is going

to increase. To the west we will see this weather system coming in

with rain, sleet and snow. Despite the lighter wind it will still feel

quite cold. Some snow affecting Scotland during the Thursday