01/04/2014 Newsnight Scotland

make sure this works. A huge part of the economy is the construction

industry. Making sure the supply meets demand is something we are

absolutely committed to. Thank you. Tonight, on Newsnight Scotland: A

year from today, the powers of the new Scotland Act will start to kick

in. But in the race to offer new levers, can anyone remember what

these ones are about? And... Says two is changing the law so that cars

in Scotland drive on the right... And what's so funny about Scottish

Independence? All the London-based broadsheets had April fools about

the referendum. Janey Godley and Quentin Letts will discuss why they

find it so amusing. Good evening. The Calman Commission

may be long gone and unlamented, but its plans for more powers for the

Scottish Parliament start to come into effect a year from today. All

the parties are now offering either independence or further devolution.

So what will these new powers mean? Our economics correspondent,

Colletta Smith, reports. Politicians are always talking about

economic levers, and the big question they are interested in is

who has got control of them. Here at the Bowness and Camille Railway, all

the power is held here in the signal box. These control whether the

trains can stop or go and which direction they can go. He in

Scotland next year, we will get control of some more of those levers

controlling the economy. The powers in the Scotland Axe kick in from the

1st of April 2015, and when they were initially announced they were

trumpeted as allowing more control of Scotland's own finances. Scotland

will have control of stamp duty, to be replaced by a different tax.

There is also landfill tax. And extra borrowing powers, but ?2.2

billion for infrastructure projects. They will also be able to very rude

the rate of income tax by 10p, -- vary the rate of income tax by 10p,

but not until two years' time. Just been in charge of the leaders does

not mean you have to move them. The Scottish Government may decide to

keep the level of property tax the same, or may decide not to borrow

any money, but those in the breath use sector are confident Holly Ruud

will up the landfill tax, because those are the overtones they have

been making already. This is creating a green economy in

Scotland. It already has threw food legislation and I think it will

continue to have a positive effect on our business. But with one year

to go until this economic levers are to be in Scotland's pounds, hardly

anyone seems content with them. People have their eyes on other

leaders, either through TiVo Macs or independence. I was never impressed

-- DevoMax. They just pooh-poohed anything we wanted to do in the

Scotland Bill to make a difference. Not so say those who made the

recommendations for the Scotland Act. We did not look beyond the

Scotland Act 2012. We chose the taxes we did because they met the

terms of reference at the time. We could have gone further and actually

the evidence presented to as suggested these were the most

appropriate taxes. One of the criticisms of the Scotland act is

that it does not go far enough in terms of power. Could real economic

changes take place because of the changes brought in? There will be

undoubtedly some bureaucracy and cost. That is inevitable and if more

devolution is to take place in the future, the costs of doing that will

increase, but hopefully the benefits will come through as well. Whatever

Scotland decides in September and whatever promises are made about

further devolution, the Scotland Act powers are rolling down the track

and even if they only apply to a small area, changing control of the

Scottish leaders could alter the economy.

I'm joined now from Edinburgh by Professor Jim Gallagher, who was

director general for devolution in the UK civil service from 2007 until

2010, and was secretary of the Calman Commission. He's speaking on

behalf of Better Together. And here in Glasgow is the Chairman of Yes

Scotland, Dennis Canavan, who was also involved in the Constitutional

Convention which designed the blueprint for the Scottish

Parliament. Jim, assuming for the sake of the

odd bit that these new powers actually come into effect next

year, -- the sake of the argument, why should anyone be excited by it?

The league transfer of tax power, fiscal power and borrowing power to

the Scottish Parliament. -- be logged transfer. -- the large

transfer. We have limited tax power was just now and when the Act comes

into place that will be increased. It is pretty important. Do you think

it is important? There has been this argument that there is no

representation without taxation, that the Scottish parliament was

almost structurally encouraged to be irresponsible because it was not

responsible for raising the money. I accept that but I honestly cannot

see the people of Scotland dancing in the streets when they are told

that these proposals are maybe going to be incremented in 12 months'

time. They are far too little and far too late. What is the most

conspicuous about this legislation is the powers that are not devolved.

There is nothing about foreign affairs, defence, welfare... So the

Scottish parliament will remain impotent in terms of things like

trying to abolish the bedroom tax, or trying to get rid of Trident, or

trying to bring about a really radical progressive system of

taxation, to redistribute wealth in favour of those who are most in

need. June, apart from that, one of the most noticeable things about it

is that if you increase control over income tax, I can see the document

that the Scottish parliament has to make a tax determination each year

and in that sense is accountable but as far as I'm aware, none of the

political parties have any plans to make an income tax rate which is any

different from the rest of the UK. So it is hardly surprising if people

in Scotland to not get very excited about this. First, let's wait and

see what they do, not just in the next Scottish parliament elections

but in the ones after that. They will have to make the tax decision.

At the moment if they do not do anything, the money still flows. Now

the Scottish parliament will be faced with a choice. People often

say they want to increase spending but they seldom say that they want

to increase tax. What the Scotland Act will do is mean that it takes

responsibility. But they haven't used the full taxation powers that

they have had since the last century. They have never been

obliged to use them. If a Parliament sits on its hands with independents,

there will be no tax at all. That is what the Parliament has to do, make

a grown-up decision about what to do with tax. That is the core of

political accountability. What this act does is give that to the

Scottish Parliament. It also gives substantial borrowing powers. That

isn't new, even if no one changes the tax rate, it remains the same as

the UK, it does give the Scottish Government substantial borrowing

power. It is a bit late in the day. I remember arguing for borrowing

powers in the 1980s, even before the Scottish Constitutional Convention

was set up. No one listened to me. Far too little, far too late. It is

only by the full powers of independents that the people of

Scotland are going to be in power and that representatives elected

through the Scottish column -- Parliament will have full power.

People want a ferret Scotland, and there are not adequately that in

this legislation to achieve that. The only way you can achieve that is

through full independence. But a lot of people would say, actually, this

is precisely what we want. A gradual increase in hours. We might like a

bit more further down the line but it doesn't risk anything that

independence risks. We shall see whether the referendum comes... We

are already closing the gap. We are very optimistic. I am not being

complacent at this stage but I am confident that there are a lot of

people out there that can be persuaded that all these tinkering

around with the British constitution, because that is all

this is, all this tinkering around will produce less than half a loaf.

The people of Scotland deserve the full loaf and it is only by voting

Yes in this referendum that they will get that. Tinkering around? If

nothing fundamental changes? Of course, nothing will ever satisfy

Dennis. No powers given to the Scottish parliament will satisfy

him. But the striking thing is that all the parties in support of the

Calman Commission are now either committed to powers which go further

than the powers you recommended, and which come into force next year, or

in the case of the Conservatives, are pledged to come up with more

powers. Yes, and the commission itself said that the set of powers

it recommended were not necessarily the final step. What I am pretty

sure will happen, assuming the parties -- Scottish people vote to

stay inside the UK, there will be more powers after the referendum.

That is doing this step by step and carefully to get us to the place

where, as you say, most people want to be. They want to have a strong

Scottish parliament with more powers but also the security and stability

of being in the UK. But there is nothing you can point to, Dennis

mentioned getting rid of the bedroom tax... That is the one thing which

the Scottish Parliament has already managed to do under its present

powers. It has the capacity to do that. But the point is, a big issue

that after next year the Scottish Parliament will do this that it

couldn't do before. You cannot say that. It is all fairly technical

stuff to do with tax issues. Well, if you think it is all technical,

white until the Government takes a decision that you do not like. The

power to tax is the single biggest power of a Government. This is a big

step towards a much more powerful Parliament. It will have to take a

much more grown-up set of decisions. On the other side, I am not aware of

any proposals from the Yes campaign to change tax powers. The Yes

campaign is not a political party. It is not our job to define every

single policy. There is a consensus around certain issues. What unites

us is that we believe that the only way you will get more powers for the

Scottish Parliament is by voting Yes in the referendum. The point I'm

making, assuming it ever, these limited powers come in and note

political party in Scotland, including the SNP as of now, has a

proposals to actually use them. That remains to be seen, but I think

there will be a consensus in an independent Scotland for the use of

all the economic levers at its disposal to bring about a more

prosperous Scotland. You didn't have to hunt very hard

for jokes in the papers today. The London based ones almost all based

their buffoonery on the prospect of Scottish independence. We'll talk in

a moment about why the metropolitan chattering classes think that's

funny. But first, a summary of what you may have missed, from Huw

Williams. The Guardian said an independent

Scotland would shake up the road network, starting with new signs. A

new typeface replaces the English equivalent. Phase two is changing

the laws that the cars in Scotland drive on the right, and that is the

issue phase three seeks to answer. What happens at the border between

England and Scotland? Well, meet the spiral interchange, what is hoped to

be an elegant, ecological friendly way of transitioning traffic from

left to right and vice versa, at multiple locations. The times

cleaned the house of Windsor could be ditched if Scotland vote yes and

replace them with a living Duke of Saxony who claims descent from the

house of Stuart. The in-depth -- the Independent said

the UN is drawing up plans for a peacekeeping mission in case a Yes

vote result in cross-border tensions or even economic migrants.

The Daily Telegraph had mocked up a pound coin showing the face of the

Queen replaced with that of Alex Salmond. The Sun said the Queen will

allow fracking in Buckingham Palace grounds. It claimed nationalist --

nationalists wanted to beam a giant Batman style beam into the sky. The

Daily Mail said it had got meat details of what the rest of the

UK's flag would look like if Scotland votes for independence. It

said it had snatched photograph of paperwork being carried by a

ministerial aide, which showed the effect of taking the sole tyre out

of the union Jack. -- the saltire. I'm joined in the studio by the

comedian Janey Godley, who has made a documentary about humour and the

referendum, which goes out tomorrow on Radio Scotland. And in London is

the Mail's columnist and parliamentary sketch-writer, Quentin

Letts. Janey, are you delighted, offended,

whatever, by the fact all the broadsheets chose to make April

Fools out of the Scottish independence campaign? I am not

offended, because we do not have that big an ego that it can be

broken by a couple of English newspapers. We are bigger than that.

It is comedy. Comedy is meant to hold and -- hold a mirror up to

society. They should be able to make fun of the referendum. Nobody has

sat and cried in Scotland, we were too busy checking out how many oil

barrels we had. Quentin, one major criticism you could make about these

is that none of them were very funny. That is possibly accurate.

They have become a terrible journalistic terror and eight, April

Fools, almost from the start of March, editors are scowling, try to

think of something funny. So, now it is over for another year. The daily

Mirror had one about the pop group one direction going to North Korea

and being told they had to get haircuts just like the North Korean

dictator. The Sun had one about fracking... That was hilarious. The

good old Daily Mail. The one in the Daily Mail quoted a government

spokesman. These things have become a little bit of a tyranny, but one

can sometimes accused the British press of being too relentlessly

mirthless, so give them a break on April one. Why did they choose the

referendum campaign? Is it just that it is all a bit exotic down their?

It is, at that. Donald Rumsfeld once spoke about unknown unknowns. The

Scots referendum is taking us, possibly, into unfamiliar territory.

When you have unfamiliar territory, you have all sorts of theories are

rising, that is why this may be fertile territory. I think it is a

big story and the papers were leaping on it. It is unusual, the

Daily Mail! Normally they have lots of jokes about immigrants. They must

have been stuck. There is not a lot of humour up here, is their? There

is lots of humour in the referendum. We have people call summoned and

sturgeon. -- salmon and sturgeon. The politicians... We have more

pandas than Tories, which is the oldest joke ever. I was listening

earlier to the documentary you made, one of the points that one of your

colleagues makes in that is that she raised this issue in a comedy club,

and she said she thought it felt rather tense. Why was that? She

raised it with her family. Somebody did say there was tension. Because

people still feel that they are not... You have to remember, in

Glasgow, you are either a Catholic or Protestant, now you have to be a

yes or no. It is like the old days when you're a child and you went out

to play and you knocked on the door and their mother said, you are

either out or you are in. There is tension, the result was tension, but

white can't you have comedy about the best tension? Northern Ireland

had amazing comedy. She seemed to be suggesting that this issue in

particular, and a lot of supporters of Rangers and Celtic have a laugh

together... Well, more than perhaps in the old days. But this seems to

be... Why do you think there is a particular issue here? Is it just

that people think it is important? I am a comedian, I go on stage and I

talk about the referendum, and we do jokes there are lots of comedians

who have been joking about the referendum for ages. And nobody is

really having that... I did it in Nottingham, I have stood on stage in

Los Angeles and spoken about Scottish independence. Folk are into

it but there is a small minority of people saying you cannot talk about

it or that it may cause tension. No, it doesn't. We can talk about

anything. Every joke in its essence is effective -- offensive to start

with. People can decide what they feel offended about. The bemusement

you were talking about, Quentin, will that continue, do you think?

The coverage down they are of what is happening here does seem to be

increasing very rapidly. As the decision gets closer, there is more

coverage. But I would not say that it is an obsession down here yet.

That might happen and a couple of weeks before the referendum, but

there is not any idea yet of the urgency. I sit watching politicians

all day long. There was something magnificent about the coin. With

Alex Salmond on the coin. He looked a bit like Tito on an old-fashioned

Yugoslav coin. The lifted chin. There was nothing Tito about it! I

think there should be... He looked rather magnificently, sort of

Doughty. I think he looked like Frank Sonata. I think they should be

more to the referendum, it should not just be yes or no, we hope

should have a third option like, can we just go? Go to Finland and give

hand-outs so that Vladimir Putin can't get in. Can Quentin, as well?

No, because then there would be two Tories and that would frighten the

pandas. Perhaps we should be taking more notice of what is going on, but

you do not get the sense that it is gripping anyone down here, perhaps

that is a pity. We will have to leave it there, thank you both very

much. Now a quick look at tomorrow's front

pages. Many of them leading with the tragic

case of Keane Wallis-Bennett, who was killed by a crumbling wall at

her school in Edinburgh. In the Scotsman, the same story. Health and

safety probe into tragedy. The Guardian, Tories plan new attack on

wind farms. That is all we have time for. I will be back tomorrow. Until

then, good night. Good evening. Some of us will need

umbrellas during the course of Wednesday, particularly if you live

across the West of the country. From the tip of Cornwall all the way to

Bristol, through Wales, around the North West and certainly, Northern

Ireland and Scotland. It looks as though the clouds will gather and

there will be some ad breaks of rain. For the North of