07/02/2013 Newsnight Scotland

some time and patience. Thank you Tonight on Newsnight Scotland - the

Royal Bank of Scotland belongs to you and me, given that taxpayers

bailed it out, but what should we do about it? How about if we were

all given shares in the bank and allowed to sell them if the price

rises and keep some of the money for ourselves? We will ask whether

the financial crash could finally put some cash in our pocket. Also

tonight, we could learn from the Netherlands about cycle from the

roads, but do we want to pay for them? Good evening. It is really

not just pie-in-the-sky. The proposal has been floated by the

Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, Vince Cable, as a possible way for

the Government to get rid of its stake in RBS. It is a bit like the

sell-off of public for a mullah in the 1980s, except we would not have

to pay anything. In a moment we will be asking if the idea is

bonkers, but is it even practical? The way it would work is pretty

simple. Every citizen with a national insurance number could

apply for shares. There could be worth about �1,000 per person. You

could just sell up and cash in. Well, actually, the idea is that

you could not sell until the shares reach a floor price at which the

Government could recoup the �30 billion or so it spent on bailing

out RBS in the first place. Depending on how you calculate the

Government's stake, that would be somewhere between 400p and 500p.

Let's say it is 500p. If the shares rise above a fiver, you could sell

them, but you would have to give a fiver to the Government, which

means for you to make �5, the shares would have to rise to �10.

But what is the catch? There are so many shares, they would almost

certainly sell at a discount, and the Government would not get the

bail-out money back. This way, the Government does get the money back,

but it just does not know when. You might keep hold of the shares for

years, and the deal might turn you into Warren Buffett. In strictly

economic terms, the Government waiting until it can shell the

shares at a profit or giving them to you makes little difference. But

which option would you prefer? Trusting the Government to reward

you for a successful sale or having shares you could sell and having

the cash in hand? Well, I am joined from Edinburgh by Peter Jones, who

writes about finance and economics for the Times. There is something

quite attractive about this, but also something a bit strange...

it also deals with a political problem, initially a financial

problem - because everybody knows that the Government wants to get

rid of its shareholding, and because the break-even price is, as

you say, about �5, that means that any investor who wants to buy RBS

shares is unlikely to do so, knowing that the Government wants

to offload their shares, so they would not be willing to buy them

much above �5. So, it means the Government is almost bound to make

a loss on the shares of. How would giving them to us help that

problem? Because the Government could sell them off in big slices,

and UKFI has been talking to Michael East investors about buying

slices of these shares. But by giving them to us, if it was 45

million individuals or 26 million taxpayers, then everybody makes

their own decision about when to sell the shares. That means there

is much more likely to be a steady East -- steady trickle of the

shares on to the market. presumably, if they gave them too

busy is, and forget to �6, some people would sell, but some people

might hold on. Yes, absolutely. It is a bit unlikely. Philip Hampton,

the chairman of RBS, was asked at the last AGM when he thought that

the RBS shares will recover their value, and he said, not in my

lifetime. So I think that is a bit unlikely. And there is another

issue, this share overhang business, it might help with that, but other

markets not also, pension funds, for example, do they not also have

the will meet at the moment about whether all the problems of this

organisation have really been sorted out? When it was bailed out,

nobody had the least expectation that we would end up in the middle

of a LIBOR scandal. Absolutely. The new management in RBS has been

going through things, and they did not discover about the LIBOR thing

until we were well into managing the bank -- they were well into

managing the bank after they were put in. And some may well be other

things. There was talk of possible problems in commodity trading.

about, let me call it the morality, or the politics of it - people say,

we, the taxpayers, bailed it out. But it is another thing to start

giving people money in their pockets for nothing, is that a

moral way for the Government to behave? You could argue that it is

an extremely moral way of the Government getting the money back,

since it was taxpayers money in the first place. So, for the taxpayers

to get it back directly, avoiding the need to go through government,

you could say that is an extremely good way of repaying taxpayers.

Although it would not come near to meeting the cost of all the extra

taxes and the lost public services which we have had to suffer since

this happened. So it would be minimal compensation, in your view?

Yes, a little bit of compensation, which have no would go a long way

to appease quite a lot of public concern about it, and also solve a

political problem. Thank you very much. Now, one of the ways we're

being told to save the planet, and save ourselves, is by active travel,

a jargon way of saying walk or cycle. The Transport Minister is

heading for Amsterdam to see how they have managed to make the

bicycle the normal mode of travel there. Commuting by bike is quick,

cheap and good for the environment. But a lack of dedicated bicycle

infrastructure means cycling in Scotland can sometimes be dangerous

- very dangerous. Things are very different on the other side of the

North Sea. In the Netherlands, segregated bike paths make cycling,

well, child's Play. There are a lot of cycle paths, yes. Do the kids

enjoy coming to school on the bike? Yes, and my son, he cycles himself.

He is six years old. I have never had any serious problems with

biking. Of course, there is the risk of getting Hick, which is

higher. But I have never heard of someone being hit with kids on

It is the result of years of work by the City Council. This is a new

part of Amsterdam. It used to be water. It all comes at a cost, of

course. But Dutch cycling campaigners see investment in bike

routes actually saves cash. saves money on public transport. It

saves money against measures for a air pollution. It saves money for

health care because the Netherlands and Denmark, there is less obesity

than in that surrounding countries. Made Dr Dr Dave Brennan, who films

his daily commute to work. Today, he is testing bet Cycling

infrastructure in Amsterdam. This a bridge cost more than �6 million.

You can see that the numbers of people who cycle here is absolutely

huge because of the Lords are designed to make it safe for them.

You can see small children out cycling on the roads. It is

something that would not happened in Scotland. They have just looked

at the Rose and decided how to design them to make people feel

safe. Cities like Amsterdam sure it is possible. But does it this equal

political power in Scotland? At Holyrood, the Scottish government

insists it has to balance competing demands. We are trying to modernise

Scotland's transport infrastructure. It has been under invested in. We

do not have motorways between our cities which we should have in a

developed country. We have to improve the infrastructure in

Aberdeen, we had to do the M74, we need their new force crossing.

Other grounds for optimism? We do have a national plan, which no

other country in the United Kingdom has. The aim is to have a 10% of

trips are by bike by 2020. We are beginning to see a movement a month

people. 3000 people demonstrated in Edinburgh, wanting to see extra and

better facilities for cycling. Protesters will Pedal on Parliament

again in the month of May. I am joined now from Edinburgh by

Chris Oliver, chairman of the Cyclists Touring Club Scotland.

Here in Glasgow is the motoring journalist Alan Douglas.

Can you think of any structure like a bridge anywhere in Scotland that

is specifically devoted to cycling in the way that we saw in the film?

I do not think there is anything that has been specifically for

cycling. There are some bridges across reverse, but not enough

bridges and infrastructure. Why do you think that is? I think we are

all long way behind the Netherlands. They are 40 years ahead of us. They

have built there cycleways and integrated them with a city

planning. They have invested significant amounts of money. For

Scotland to catch up, the need to invest a lot more money. We need to

see at least 5% of the transport budget invested in cycling across

Scotland. The transport budget in Scotland is about �2 billion a year.

We would like to see the one % they currently get increased to 25%. In

city like Edinburgh, we already get five %. -- increased to 5%. What do

you make of this? I was thinking about the bridges. Where we are,

there are two bridges used by cyclists and pedestrians, they are

not for cars. There are plenty of opportunities for cyclists to go

where they want to go without having this extra investment.

about this argument is the -- this argument that we ought to spend a

fortune it...? There are already cycle pass around Scotland that are

not used. There is a fantastic cycle pathway down the side of the

Anine. But cyclists views of the road. -- A9. Is that true? There is

a lot more cycling going on. We need safer cycling as well.

want special treatment then? Nobody is stopping you cycling. You do not

have to have your own that specific tracks. I think there is evidence

that to say that separate cycle ways are safer. If you introduce

segregated cycle ways, more people cycle. People are often afraid of

cycling in the cities. Are we missing something pretty basic

here? It rains all the time here. People do not want to get on a bike.

In Edinburgh, if it is not raining, the windows blowing. There is a

different climbing and that could - - a different climate and that

could be the reason. And there are more hells. Flatness it does help.

But if we look at Scandinavia up, Denmark, that is a cold country.

is not the cold, it is a fight it is raining all the time. There is a

culture of cycling there which there is not here. There is a

growing use of cycles in Scotland. But when it comes to extra

investment, you have to take your place along with everybody else.