09/11/2015 Scotland 2015

More powers for Scotland, but do they go far enough?

Hello. On tonight's programme -

Has the much-debated "Vow" been delivered

and can the Scotland Bill settle the constitutional question -

We'll have live political reaction and analysis.

The Prime Minister sets out his case for EU reform tomorrow.

How will it go down with the other 27 member states?

And the former Scottish Secretary admits he didn't tell

an official inquiry the truth about leaking the Nicola Sturgeon memo

until five days after he was re-elected to Parliament.

The Scotland Bill is making its final passage through

Nearly 200 amendments to the bill were tabled for discussion.

MPs have voted against an SNP amendment giving Holyrood power to

call a future referendum on Scottish independence.

Our Westminster correspondent Tim Reid is at Millbank.

Tim, can you take a moment and just expain to us what was

originally agreed by the all-party Smith Commission compared to

the bill that is going through the House of Commons just now?

I think there is no doubt that the bill is a lot closer to the Smith

recommendations than when it was first published. The Smith

recommendationsabout a share of the 80 revenues being devolved to

Scotland, air passenger duty, although things are contained in the

bill clearly and much argument has been had about them over the course

of its passage through the House of Commons. Lots of votes have been

had, lots of amendments put forward. And because the UK

Government put forward its 100 amendments at the beginning of last

week which put the bill closer to Smith, it has received a warm

welcome tonight than it had originally. Still the SNP believe

there are things in that bill which do not go as close to Smith as they

would like to and do not live up to the flower. The UK Government is

convinced, it says, that it delivers the Vow. My colleague looks at the

debate. One of the most significant events

in Scottish devolution. The government backs Smith Commission

push the case to strengthen Holyrood. That resulted in the

Scotland Bill, which completed its final stage in the Commons. Pete

Wishart began with a complaint from the SNP that not enough time had

been allocated. Scotland is watching these proceedings and will not

understand the gross disrespect shown to us. I acknowledge the

honourable member's anger. He is always angry at something. And then

it was onto the bill itself, as championed by the Scottish

Secretary. This is a significant day for Scotland as we move the debate

about our country's future from questions of constitutional process

and onto the real business of using power to improve lives. But the SNP

said that the legislation had failed to live up to what was promised. We

heard from the former prime, Gordon Brown, near federalism, within a

year or two, as close to a federal state as can be. You can call the

legislation many things but it is not a charter for federalism. It is

a long, long way away from that. MPs spent a large chunk of the evening

debating last-minute amendments including beat evolution of further

financial powers. That is Labour's earlier concern that the bill was

failing to live up to what was promised. Given that the Minister

has laid those amendments this Monday, we agree that the benefits

issue has been devolved and therefore the Vow has been

delivered. At the back row an amendment to give the Scottish

Government future powers to hold a referendum was defeated. They agreed

to give powers to Scotland to handle abortion. He's giving different

powers to Scotland and England and we know that in other parts of the

world that this has led to people having to travel at a vulnerable

time. In all, the Scotland Bill will give Holyrood a series of new tax

and welfare powers which, Minister said, will transform it into the

world's most powerful devolved parliament. But the SNP say does not

go far enough. They are winding up in the Chamber,

what is the latest? I believe it has been given its third reading on the

nod. No vote needed. I think Ian Murray, the shadow Scottish

secretary has been quoting Donald Dewar saying that there shall be a

powerful Scottish Parliament. Remember Donald Dewar's original

introduction of the Scottish Parliament said there shall be a

Scottish Parliament. It has gone to its report stage and is third

reading despite your position on some issues, Labour on the

devolution of abortion, we have not heard the last of that and clearly

it goes to the House of Lords and there may be more said about that.

The biggest you for the SNP dashed the big issue for the SNP into

nice's debate was that the Commons rejected their proposal to be given

the power to hold another referendum. That would be at the

forefront of SNP minds. This bill will require assent from Holyrood,

as well. Is it conceivable that the SNP could vote against this? I think

a number of things have to happen before that process. We had tonight

about the fiscal framework which David Mundell and John Swinney are

working on at the moment. That is needed for these powers, these

financial powers and the others that are being devolved, to come into

force. They have to agree a financial framework. It is said that

the Scottish Parliament may not allow this bill to go through if it

is detrimental to the finances of the Scottish Parliament itself. So

that has to be agreed and there will be a long, drawn-out passage through

the House of Lords before acceptance.

We are joined by the deputy SNP leader. Thanks for coming in, fresh

from the vote. You wanted more powers, is that it settled now? The

House of Commons has decided, it is progress of sorts. It is a modest

bill, not a powerful Scottish Parliament which it was suggested it

might be. We did not get tax credits devolved today and even the stuff

that was reasonably uncontentious in the bill, we don't even have all

income tax powers, corporation tax. It is good as far as it goes, but

very modest. David Mundell says it is time for the political parties to

work together to make these powers a success for everybody in Scotland.

Were you and the SNP do that now? The Scottish National Party is in

government in Holyrood, the Tories have never been in power there. The

team there have always worked to make a Scottish Parliament a success

with whatever powers -- whatever parties. You want to use the powers

to work for Scotland. But you will not be happy with anything short of

independence? The aim of the SNP is to see an independent Scotland but

in the meanwhile, let's have the most powerful Scottish Parliament we

have to improve the lives of Scottish people and grow the

economy. Their opportunities in this bill to give a small business

powers, that was rejected, to deliver tax credits to the Scottish

Parliament, to deliver fairness, that was also rejected. We have to

use the powers that are coming, remember we are not there yet, and

try to make a success of them. As I believe the SNP government has with

the powers it already has. Political opponents say that this is what the

Scottish people voted for. You lost a referendum so it is time to stop

provoking political grievances. The powers are what was promised.

Politicians say silly things but that is the most stupid. This is the

outcome of this -- the Smith Commission which was not even

started after the referendum. So it is impossible for the referendum to

have decided that this is what they wanted. So if there has been a

clever side, it was the referendum in May and the SNP won 56 out of 59

feet, and we say we should have maximum powers. This is modest

progress today but it is not Devo Max or the closest thing to

federalism. Is there any possibility that your colleagues in Holyrood

will vote against this? John Swinney was absolutely clear, the fiscal

agreement which governs how the whole thing works has to be in

place, has to be right and has to be right and have to it does not cause

Scotland any detriment, any loss simply because powers have been

devolved. But you could not really be in a position ever to vote

against more powers for Scotland, could you? Know, we did not oppose

more powers today, but the Scottish Parliament do not have to give

consent to this legislation. And I think John Swinney was right to say

they will not consent to this legislation if the overarching

financial framework leaves Scotland worse off. We are not going to buy a

pig in a poke. We should have been told the detail of the financial

agreements before we got to this stage of the legislation. It is now

off to debate it and I'm sure they will deliver something positive for

Scotland. I don't think the UK Government can take for granted that

the Scottish Parliament will automatically support a deal if it

was bad for the people of Scotland. Thank you for your time. We will be

hoping to hear from the Conservatives.

This is a key week for the Prime Minister in

Tomorrow he'll set out his case for renegotiation in a letter to

the other 27 member states and earlier he told the CBI, "The status

In a way, you can't boil down all of my negotiation to one word,

flexibility. Is this organisation flexible enough to make sure that

countries inside the Eurozone can grow and succeed and countries

outside the Eurozone, like Britain, can find what they need as well? If

it is flexible enough, we will stay. If it is not, we will have to

ask ourselves, a profound question, is this organisation for us. And

people in Europe know I am deadly serious.

Joining me now to discuss how other European countries will react to

David Cameron's demands, from our London studio is Vincenzo Scarpetta.

a policy analyst with Open Europe, which is a eurosceptic think tank

Thanks for joining us. We don't know exactly what will be in the Prime

Minister's letter, is he on emission impossible to win over the other 27

member states? I think the bottom line of our exercise, of our

European reform hits map -- heat map is that the negotiation will not be

easy but all is still to play for. The vast majorities of countries are

open-minded regarding David Cameron's reform plans that they

remain to be convinced. The chances exceeded there. The really thorny

issue is Cameron's demands for a four-year waiting period for migrant

workers to claim benefits. How will that go down? I think the proposal

to limit migrants' access to in work benefits is likely to be the single

most difficult item on his agenda. The issue there is that a few

European union member states think that the Prime Minister is trying to

bury the fundamental principle of free movement which is not what the

UK is trying to do. That is why there are strong reservations in a

number of central and eastern European member states. As regards

our map, we need to bear in mind that when we see red on our map it

does not mean that certain countries such as Poland or the Czech Republic

are impossible to convince, but it means that it will be hard work

because they have strong reservations. But once it has been

explained that what the UK is trying to do is to reform the rules on

access to welfare, and it is not trying to undermine the fundamental

principle of free movement, the chances of successful David Cameron

will increase. -- of success for David Cameron will increase.

The idea that has been put forward by David Cameron, it may be an

opening gambit but we do not know, we do not know the details of the

letter that will be sent tomorrow and we do not know what will come

out of the negotiations, so I think it is too early to prejudge what the

outcome could be. What about his desire for national governments to

be given more power, who is likely to object to that in the other

member states? This is another important item on the agenda and I

think while at pretty much all EU member states are talking a good

game about the need for national parliaments to be more involved, on

the very specific proposal of a red card, giving groups the power to

block European Union legislative proposals, I think some countries,

like Spain or Belgium may have reservations because these countries

have very strong emotional attachment to European integration

and they may think that given national parliaments the power to

veto legislation may hamper future integration. I think again these

countries can be convinced and it will not be easy, but it is not

going to be impossible, if David Cameron can do a good job of

explaining exactly what the UK is trying to achieve. It sounds like it

it is still all to play for. Absolutely. I would say that is the

bottom line of our exercise, all is still to play for, the letter David

bottom line of our exercise, all is impetus to a situation which has

been going on at a technical level and we

been going on at a technical level court of law. It started

candidate for next year's Scottish elections, and Andy Maciver, former

director of communications for the Scottish Conservatives

and PR executive with the firm Message Matters.

Welcome to you both this evening. Let us kick off with that Alistair

Carmichael story. We heard from him today that he thought it was

politically beneficial to leak about a memo about Nicola Sturgeon but it

might not be particularly noble. That is politics. It is not the Lee

Spick noble. I genuinely was a bit surprised at some of the things he

said. I do not think he helped himself and win or lose, in terms of

this particular trial, to talk about, to say that because my

advisor leaked something with my authorisation, because he leaked

it, I thought it was truthful for me to say I knew nothing about it. The

Scottish electorate are not daft, lies are lies and he told a cracking

one. He told it for political advantage. Whether or not in terms

of the letter of the law, that actually leads him to being found

guilty in legal terms, is one thing, but I think in the general

obligation mind, that is behaviour that is not acceptable for any

politician. He himself said that he is not disputing the fact that he

was south of the standard expected of the ministerial code, I do not

know if you dispute that? I do not think so. I think you are right,

when you said this is politics, it is politics, that memo and the

exclusive nature of that and the relevance to the election campaign

made it very late Kabul from a political point of view, it does not

matter which party you are from, I think any minister would have been

quite happy for that memo to be leaked. He is serving the first

order last politician to do something that. He is certainly not

the first. I do not accept that this is politics, that is what politics

is like, it may be what it has been like, it is not what it should be

like. Politicians need to come forward and say this is not

acceptable. People who do that in the future, we should not have to

wait for constituents to take them to court, they party and colleague

should say should not have done that and you need to stand down and we

will take the by-election and see what we do with that. I agree

completely and I wish politics was not like that but I think nobody

should have any moral superiority because this could have and would

have been done by ministers from all different parties. It is a political

issue and a political trial, there is no question about that, the SNP

see an opportunity for a by-election which could impact on the seats in

Shetland next year but I do not blame the SNP, that is a political

opportunity in the same way that the Liberal Democrats saw an opportunity

with Michelle Thompson in Ember West. Could say it was fair enough

to leak if you thought was politically advantageous but what

about the fact he did not tell the official enquiry the truth about his

role in the leak until five days after he was re-elected? Precisely.

That is the thing that is motivating those constituents and they are not

all SNP members or even SNP supporters. That is what is

motivating them to do what they are doing, at enormous cost and with

great difficulty and is motivating others, again not in any political

party and some who are to support them in doing that, it is about

lying. As you say, if you set aside the leak, to actually lie initially

and then come clean later, to come clean later, because you know you're

going to get found out, I think he said today, no leak enquiry ever

finds a source and then he quickly realised after he was elected how

convenient that the source was probably going to be found. Then he

came clean. He did not even tell the truth for telling the truth's say,

he told the truth because he knew he would be found out. He will be given

more evidence tomorrow, but moving on to another story, the Chancellor

announced 30% cuts or four government departments stop Paul

Johnson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that is just a

taste of bigger cuts to come. These are big cuts, 30% is a big cut to

day-to-day spending but it is important to be clear this was not

most of the transport budget, most of that budget is capital spending,

that is not what the Chancellor is talking about. That is not most of

the local government spending which is funded through council tax and so

on. These are small amounts of money but an indication of the scale of

cuts across the bigger amounts of money that we will hear about later.

We have not seen anything yet. It is a continuation of what has been

happening over the last four or five years with the heat turned up. It is

interesting when it translates to Scotland, will have Barnett

consequential is but if you look at transport, which is one of the

departments concerned is, the Scottish Government has a good

record, over the last four or five years despite the cuts which shows

that the government in Scotland has been able to find a very good

efficiencies despite budget cuts and shows it is possible to do that. I

think one of the interesting things about the cuts in the departments

recently is that they have not impacted on service provision

because the government has managed to squeeze efficiencies out and that

is an interesting point in these particular department and that will

continue. It seems that the Chancellor is determined to push on

regardless of any other criticism with his plan to run a budget

surplus. Yes he is, yes he is. He is determined to do that regardless of

the pain it will cause and whilst I do not disagree with Andy that there

has been room to make efficiencies and use our resources better, I

think two things, one, there comes a point when that becomes no longer

doable without directly reducing the level of service that is available

to people and secondly, his big push is really going to come on welfare

because despite what the Lords have done on tax credits, they have

simply given him a challenge to find more welfare cuts from elsewhere and

I think that means that the poorest and most vulnerable and those least

able will be the ones who will pay the price for a budget surplus that

he has produced out of a clear blue sky and is actually greater than the

current Scottish budget. So he wants to save all of that. Well, let us

move on before we run out of time to that other story we were discussing

tonight about Cameron's letter to the European Council leader setting

up the reforms he wants to see. I do not know quite what is in the letter

but McDonnell says it is all bluff and bluster. I think he is right. It

is difficult to envisage him arguing for anything other than remain vote.

It is a difficult position for him to be in specifically because he

cannot be seen to say I will campaign to stay at all costs

because that undermines the renegotiation with his European

partners. The other European countries need to see two things,

they need to see the polls are closed and there is a risk Britain

will lead and see that Cameron is prepared to come out of he does not

get what he wants. I'm not convinced he will. It is difficult to see

Cameron campaigning for anything else other than remain vote but it

might be a useful tool for him to persuade his partners in Europe that

they are going to need to give him something if they want him to stay

in. I would agree. He is trying to ride two horses and it is a tactic.

I am not sure how well it will work because those that he is going to

negotiate with are pretty politically astute and they might

spot it for what it is. It is still not clear to me, not clear to many

of us exactly what other changes he wants to have and where are his

bottom line and do we agree with those anyway? These are his

negotiation tactics and I am not sure that he has got a mandate to

new -- to do that but he is doing that all the less.

Unfortunately we didn't manage to a Conservative MP to discuss

the Scotland Bill as we had hoped, nevertheless I'll be back