03/11/2015 Scotland 2015

The driver of the bin lorry that killed

six people in Glasgow has apologised for his role in the crash.

11 months on from the Glasgow bin lorry crash,

some of the relatives of those who died have criticised the Crown

And the driver of the lorry says he knows the families will have many

And are school pupils from richer backgrounds always destined to

It's not often we hear governments being criticised for overambition

but that's the conclusion of a report published today

into closing the attainment gap in Scotland's schools.

The First Minister Nicola Sturgeon recently staked her personal

reputation on closing the gap between pupils

But the think tank the Commission on School Reform says that

the rate of improvement required by the government calls

for a pace of change that has never previously been generated

These pupils at Dunblane high school have been studying the effect of

global poverty. Poverty is also one of the key reasons for the

difference in how well children do at school. These first-year pupils

are at the start of their time at school and are aware of the

importance of doing well. If you don't do very well you might not get

as good education. It is quite important that you are educated in

everything, not just all the practical stuff like English and

maths. That you know history and things like that. Closing the school

attainment gap between pupils from the least and most privileged

backgrounds has skyrocketed to the top of the political agenda.

Everyone agrees it needs to be tackled but coming up with policies

to do it has been a colossal challenge. A report has now

questioned what has been done so far. It suggests Scotland is in

decline compared to other countries. Headteacher Franklin and has been in

the profession for many years and helped write the report. If we are

looking at a national strategy, the scale of improvement and the pace of

improvement required to meet these laudable ambitions, they are going

to have to be of a different order altogether to anything we have done

before in the past. Improvement will not be enough. If we are going to

tackle the issue of closing the gap between these two groups of young

people in our schools, school improvement at the current pace is

simply not... It is ridiculous to think. We will be here for another

40 years. So what are Scotland's political parties offering to close

the gap. The SNP political parties offering to close

is? The only thing that needs to remain completely untouched is

school autonomy. It might be one method but plenty of other models

can be learned from. There has method but plenty of other models

school schools poverty is on the increase and inevitably that means

that the impact in the schools is going to be greater. There is a

serious challenge here in terms of how schools try to mitigate the

impact of situations in society where inequality is growing.

Absolute property is growing. There is a real challenge for everyone

involved in education. There is a big idea about introducing national

testing in primary schools. Is that going to change things? We are

hugely sceptical that introducing testing will improve attainment are

generally. It certainly won't improve or close the attainment gap.

The testing that exists in primary, all the international evidence

shows, unless you make sure that impacts on teaching and learning,

making a difference to young people in classrooms, all you do is create

an accountability system that can entry and inequalities rather than

eradicate them. You do not mention testing in the report. Do you think

it will have an affect on closing the attainment gap? If you don't

know what you are dealing with, how can you close the gap? The

commission will comment on the national improvement framework in

due course. Testing in itself will obviously not improve standards.

What it might do is provide information to allow schools to

improve standards. Where I think the national improvement framework is

mistaken is in saying that the kind of testing which is proposed will be

diagnostic testing which will help individual teachers to help

individual young people. It is far too infrequent and small in scale to

do that. Would you'll I to see Morse testing? -- more testing. No. It

will enforce the system as a whole. We are lamentably short in the

system as a whole. It has a function to fulfil but it will not in itself

generate improvement. That could prove the focus back on teachers,

some teachers who are not doing well enough. In terms of assessment, we

accept that assessment is key to teaching and learning. With the

issue of diagnostic testing, I think there is a role for it as part of

the range of assessments that teachers use. What we want to see

that make is a difference in the classroom. We want to address the

lack of information from local authorities. I think there is an

approach to that around teacher's professional judgment. Meeting those

needs without introducing a system of national testing. That could lead

to perverse outcomes, target setting, league tables that

curriculum assessments were designed to do away with. We need to make

sure we don't introduce something into our schools something that is

going to distort the aims we have been working on for ten years. Is

that a concern of yours? It is a concern that perverse incentives may

enter the system. I don't think that is necessarily an outcome of the

kind of standardised assessment that the government is proposing. It is

not necessary, for example, for the information to be published at

school level. It is sufficient that the information is aggregated up to

local authority or national level to see how the system as a whole is

performing. Far too often, the focus of inspection is not on policy but

how policy is implemented. I am quite confident that the huge

majority of teachers are seeking to implement policy as quickly and

effectively as they can. I am not always confident that the policy

itself is entirely sound. Larry Flanagan, all the parties have their

own variation of throwing some money at this problem in the run-up to the

election. There is an attainment fun, ?25 million aimed at the most

deprived areas. There is deviation in how that money is spent. There is

deviation in how it is being spent because it is left to individual

schools and local authorities to come up with their own programmes.

In a sense, that is useful because it allows autonomy for the schools.

There is expectation that that is going to lead to some system change.

Not short-term so that the money is used and the games are lost. It is

useful that the political parties are addressing this issue and

education has this focus but we have to guard against more heat being

generated and light. I fully accept that all the political parties are

committed to addressing the impact of poverty that we shouldn't have

the discourse saying that our schools are failing. I think the

report indicates that while the progress may be slower than we

hoped, standards are being raised, so we don't want a situation where

we are dismissing a lot of the progress that has been made while

ignoring the challenges that are there. The First Minister has staked

her reputation on closing this attainment gap. Given the criticisms

in the report may that have been a little unwise? I think it is

comparatively rash. Narrowing the gap would be a laudable and

achievable end but I can't see that competently closing the gap is

something that will happen in my lifetime, even though she is a lot

younger than me, the First Minister's lifetime. Nevertheless,

we must strive to do that. We must leave it there. Thank you for coming

in. Families of some of those killed

in the Glasgow bin lorry crash have been speaking publicly

for the first time. They have accused prosecutors of not

being aware of the true medical history of the driver, Harry Clarke,

when they decided not to charge him The driver

of the lorry has also told the BBC he apologies unreservedly

for his role in the crash. Three days before Christmas, panic

in Glasgow city centre. A bin lorry, with Harry Clarke slump at

the wheel careered down Queen Street and crashed into the hotel. Six

people were killed and 15 injured. Lucy Ewing was shopping with her

mother. I heard quite a loud bang but after that I don't remember much

other than being on the road and seeing the bin lorry come up the

street towards my mum. Then, obviously, I saw it hit her. Jackie

Morton was also killed in the crash. Her son Russell didn't find out for

many hours what had happened to her. They said, we have phoned around all

of the hospitals. She is not there. There is a possibility that she is

at the square. There is a possibility that she could be one of

the victims lying in George Square. Nine weeks after the crash the Crown

announced it wasn't prosecuting the driver Harry Clarke. Amid a series

of meetings to explain the decision, all the family said that Harry

Clarke had told them that he had previously fainted in a hot canteen.

They uncovered a trail of dishonesty about his health. He had failed to

tell Glasgow City Council. We've acquired some of these

documents. To the Crown know all of this when it decided not prosecute?

When one of the bereaved families heard about the fate at the wheel of

the bus, they complain to the Crown. The response said that Crown

official David Green didn't recall having made reference to the canteen

incident. This man was a former senior prosecutor. I do think that

the Crown office rushed to a decision in this particular case.

And, I suspect, if they had to do it again, and had held all the

information that came out of the inquiry, the decision in relation to

Harry Clarke may have been different. Harry Clarke declined to

be interviewed for the programme but, in a statement, he said...

The Crown office had also decided against any charges under health and

safety law. Some of the families have been critical of this. He fell

through every safety net to put in place, from doctors, health and

safety, to counsel. I tracked down an expert at occupational health to

find out whether he agreed there was no health and safety case to answer.

So, what avenues were open to them? If an employee takes an action which

could damage the public, that is a health and safety issue and there is

a specific reference to Missions at work as well, covering not providing

information allowing an employer to assess whether or not there are

risks from drivers. In a case where the employer wasn't making

appropriate checks, didn't have appropriate risk assessment, didn't

act on advice from their occupational health adviser, if they

were getting at, in those circumstances, under section three

of the act, they could be found to be in breach of the act. Elaine

survived the crash. She believes the justice system has failed her and

those who have lost their lives. I feel very let down. If, by law, he

couldn't be charged, there needs to be changes then made to the law.

These six people who died, they just can't be gone. They are not here

today. ... To speak for themselves. With me now, James Chalmers,

Regius Professor of Law at Thank you for coming in this

evening. Were you surprised the Crown office announced... It took

them nine weeks to decide they were not going to prosecute Harry Clarke.

Is that unusual? It was an unusually quick decision. The speed of it

doesn't necessarily tell you whether it has been properly or not. That

should be demonstrated through full reasons given for that but what we

have is a very short and terse statement saying there is no

evidence of crime and we are moving on. Can you understand why that

might have fuelled some unhappiness amongst the families who felt due

consideration why not have been taken? What we've seen from the

report in the documentary earlier today is that some of the families

feel there was information coming out for the first time at the F AI,

and if the Crown office had told them that this is what we know and

this is what we feel we can prove, and this is why it doesn't amount to

a crime and we couldn't get a conviction, things would have looked

different but it would have been difficult to her hear that at the

FAI. We heard the professor talking about the prospect, he thought there

might be a prosecution under health and safety legislation. What is your

view? The Crown office said they didn't think there were grounds for

prosecuting the city council under health and safety. It is being dealt

with purely in reference to causing death by dangerous driving. When

they gave detail about exactly why they thought there would be a

prosecution under health and safety, there's not been the level of detail

you'd expect from the explanation. And, do you think they could be any

chance, realistic chance, of a conviction even under criminal law?

The problem is that you have somebody who clearly didn't declare

information to the DVLA, which they are under obligation to declare, but

there is a time limit under that offence. What happened last year

happened a long time after that, and the Crown position, even if he had

done what he had done, we have to prove he is acting dangerously on

the day of the offence. But we cannot prove that on the day he

actually met the standard required for a probable conviction. There

have been suggestions from some of the families about the prospect of a

private prosecution. Is that a realistic prospect, in your view?

They need to get permission from the court to do that. That has happened

very rarely. Of the court has never gone against the Crown's decision.

In cases where it has happened, it's where the Crown has chosen not to

bring a prosecution or thought there was no evidence to do so, so it

would be breaking new ground and it is up to the prosecution to make

that decision. So it'll be difficult. I would be surprised if

permission would be granted, but we have to listen to the arguments.

Thank you for coming in this evening. NSB is voted overwhelmingly

condemning fluky government's plan to renew Trident. It followed a

similar vote at the Scottish Labour Party conference. The only MSP to

vote against it was Jackie Baillie. Many of those in Faslane live in her

constituency. There are 6800 people directly employed at Faslane by the

MoD and its contractors. My source for that figure is an FOIA request

made to the MoD in September last year. A study commissioned

identified an extra 4500 jobs in the supply chain and the local economy.

That is 11,300 people. With me now to discuss some

of the day's news are the journalist and Green Party member Louise

Batchelor and Sam Ghibaldan a former Welcome. It is perhaps not

surprising, Louise, that Jackie Baillie voted the way she did, given

Faslane, a lot of the workers are in her constituency, but more sub --

surprising that the Scottish Labour leader voted for the motion. She saw

the way the wind was blowing. So it is excellent shoes made this

decision. It has been a proud day for Scotland, speaking as a Scottish

Green. But it has. It might not count for much in terms of deciding

the policy at UK level, but, then again, it may and the world will be

watching and listening and we have the situation where Kezia Dugdale is

at odds with her party, and Jeremy Corbyn is at odds with his party,

and they might come around. The big Commons vote is next year. I can

understand Jackie Baillie taking a stand on jobs but that isn't to say

the rest of us aren't concerned about the jobs in that part of the

vol Pogba has to be another way of approaching them and finding

alternatives. I wonder, Sam, a lot of talking politics these days is

about authenticity. Will it help Kezia Dugdale as a leader to have

voted against something we all know she doesn't believe in? She was

caught between a rock and a hard place because her party at the

weekend chose a policy decision against Trident which we know she is

at best uncomfortable with. Equally, this is the first test of her party

in its new, slightly more autonomous relationship with the UK Labour

Party so she couldn't vote against the party decision. She had no

choice. In terms of labour going forward, it is quite interesting

because I doubt very much this will make a huge difference to the

electoral fortunes in Scotland. If you look at polls, people who

support the nonrenewal of Trident, they tend to be SNP supporters and

Green supporters. And the split is equal between people who want it

renewed and who don't want it. I'm not at all convinced right and is

necessarily the primary motivating factor. The good thing is that it

does perhaps mark the start of a journey towards a new confident and

self-assured position in this new landscape, slightly more independent

from the UK counterparts. The greens called on SNP and Labour both to go

even further and to go even further and oppose Nato for a long time the

SNP held. Is there a contradiction in backing Nato while voting to

scrap Trident? Not at all. I know everyone says Nato is about nuclear

deterrents, but it isn't. There are plenty of members of Nato that don't

have a nuclear deterrent and it is time we joined them, so no

contradiction whatsoever. But it is time to look at diversification, not

time to sit on our hands and say, well, sorry, but you'll have to find

something you to do. It is time to have a review of defence jobs that

they will be able to do in the future that don't involve a nuclear

deterrent. Well, David Cameron will continue to make the case broke

standing military action in Syria, after foreign affairs select

committee report advising the prime in Syria, after foreign affairs

select committee report advising the promised of against voting in

parliament in the issue. One Tory MPs said the proposed action was

misunderstood. We are bringing a specific capability with those

tornadoes that the rest of the coalition do not have, and that is

all that is. It is not a huge bombing campaign. It is merely

adding to what we have got. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the

Australians and with the French and the US. That is very important. I

want to see this go through. The foreign affairs select committee has

a majority of Tory MPs so are you surprised by the stance they've

taken on military action in Syria? Not really, not when you see the

long list of objections or reservations against taking action.

Which the greens would entirely agree with. We are not in favour of

waiting into these kinds of disputes anywhere but in particular not in

Syria where, which ever way you look at it, you can only make matters

worse. Do we end up supporting Assad, which we are not in favour of

doing? Do we try to go in with these targeted attacks? They never work,

there is always collateral damage, we always make things worse. The

other thing the committee look at is what is going to happen on the

ground, what will be the territory, who will be the ground forces that

will take over and manage and rule. The other concern is went to make

ISAs stronger and even more defined? How embarrassing is this for the

prime Minister? I think it is actually... The very small Tory

majority is starting to tell. It is quite significant the UK Tory

government and party can't persuade people in its own side to back its

position. That said, another way to look at this is it is very good

position. That said, another way to see house of commons select

committee doing its job properly, coming up with a thorough and robust

report. It is quite interesting when you look at what they did say. They

didn't say we shouldn't bomb Syria. They said before

Let's hope we can find some concerted way to achieve actions

that will need military intervention and also Hearts and minds. Both are

essential. I think the nature of Isis, you're not going to defeat

them peacefully. I'm afraid that is where we will have to leave it.