26/11/2015 Scotland 2015

The Prime Minister says bombing Syria will make us safer.

David Cameron says we can't outsource

But would British bombs make a difference in Syria?

Difficult decisions ahead for the Scottish Government.

Unless the Prime Minister answers these questions satisfactorily, the

Scottish National party will not vote for your strikes in Syria.

Difficult decisions ahead for the Scottish Government.

Can they end austerity without raising taxes?

And could pioneering work by Scottish scientists help explain

The Prime Minister set out his case for British air strikes

He told MPs that bombing Isis militants would make us safer

and argued the UK could not outsource its security to allies.

But the SNP says it won't support The Prime Minister

unless he can address key questions that remain unanswered.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says he'll vote against air strikes,

a stance which puts him at odds with a number of his own MPs.

Mike Grundon has been following the debate.

British warplanes are already taking part in the US and French led

bombing of Isis targets in Iraq but unlike their allies they are not

crossing the border into Syria. The Prime Minister says it makes no

sense. We face a fundamental threat to our security. We cannot wait for

a political transition. We must hit the terrorists in their heartlands

right now and we must not shirk our responsibility for security or hand

it to others. Throughout our history, the United Kingdom has

stood up to defend our values and our way of life. We can and we must

do so again. Mr Cameron said seven terrorist plots had been foiled by

security services in the past year, all linked to Isis. The reaction in

the house to his call for action appeared split today. Not along

party lines but putting those who supported his position and those who

wanted to know more before committing to it. All that Isis

stands for is contrary to everything we stand for. There is no doubt it

poses a threat to our people. The question must now be whether

extending UK bombing from Iraq to Syria is likely to reduce or

increase that threat. Jeremy Corbyn has written to Labour MPs explaining

that he cannot support extending military action. Parliament watchers

described today's debate as measured and showing the house at its best.

They say there was little political point scoring but plenty of

thoughtful responses. Two years ago, the Prime Minister urged us to bomb

the opponents of Isis in Syria. That would probably have strengthened

this terrorist organisation. Today the Prime Minister wants us to

launch a bombing campaign without effective ground support in place.

Or a fully costed reconstruction and stability plan. The Prime Minister

has asked us to consider his plan. We have listened closely. However,

key questions posed by the foreign affairs select committee remain

unanswered and unless the Prime Minister answers these questions

satisfactorily, the Scottish National party will not vote for

your strikes in Syria. The chairman of the Defence Select Committee

later gave a personal view of what he thought was the big question. I

will not be voting for your strikes which alone will be indecisive

because I want to see a military strategy which will work and that

has to involve the Syrian army, whether Assad is president or not.

That is my personal opinion. Today's debate did not lead to a

vote in fact no date has been set. But it gave people a chance to lay

out their position on the issue, or at least what their position is

today. Well, the Prime Minister is expected

to call a Commons vote as early But what difference would British

military intervention really make Joining me from our Edinburgh studio

is Rae McGrath from the humanitarian organisation Mercy Corps, and from

London, Malcolm Chalmers of the Welcome to you both. Malcolm

Chalmers, the Prime Minister says arming Isis in Syria will make us

more safe stop is that possible? I think it is possible. The impact in

the UK is not going to be significant in the short term either

way. We are already involved in bombing Isis in Iraq and it will be

a long time before their capability for launching terrorist attacks in

Europe is significantly degraded. As your presenter made clear, we are

already involved in the bombing campaign in Syria by providing

refuelling and command and control. Our aircraft tracked Isis militants

on the ground. We then pass the target to American or French planes

to finish the job. We are involved already. It was put forward as a

central argument today by the Prime Minister that we will become safer

if we are involved in military intervention in Syria. Is that he

did not reason for air strikes against Isis? My concern is that we

are consistently seeing the Syrian more from our perspective of whether

we can make life for us safer. We have 7.5 million displaced people in

Syria and adding more bombing to what is already a terrifying

situation to people who have no real reserves left, that is not gone to

make things better, it will make things worse. More refugees leaving

Syria, more refugees coming to Europe. It is hard for me to

understand how that will make things better. Will it make the situation

worse? I think the strongest better. Will it make the situation

argument for the current coalition air campaign against Isis, which

argument for the current coalition overrun by Isis, as would have been

the case in Iraq. There is a strong humanitarian argument in favour of

providing protection for Kurds who are prepared to fight Isis on the

ground to protect their homes, but they need support from others in the

area. That has been effective in Kobane were other regional states

have not been prepared to support them.

have not been prepared to support It is not clear to me why selecting

Isis as a target to bring an end to the war is going to help. It is a

very complex situation. Malcolm Chalmers still you think the Prime

Minister has made a strong enough case? It is a very difficult issue

and I think you can argue both sides of the case. Personally, I think it

is wrong to say we should only get involved in a military campaign in

Syria if we have a complete political solution to Syria, because

we clearly do not have that. Most of the external powers involved are

more interested in the war between the regime and the rebels, Iran,

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Russia. If we are convinced that an air

campaign will make a difference and save lives on the ground and help to

push back Isis then I think it is worthwhile. We do not have to make a

complete case for solving all the problems of Syria. That was the

approach we had in Iraq and Afghanistan where we had to solve

all the problems and it is just not possible. Thank you both for coming

in. After the Chancellor's U-turn

on working tax credits, the newspapers this morning

heralded "the end of austerity". George Osborne is still planning

to cut ?12 billion from welfare And the news for Scotland

was grimmer than expected. Yes, capital spending is up,

but day-to-day spending will see a drop in real terms

of ?1.5 billion a year. In a moment, we'll discuss what

the Scottish government might do. Swinney, Swinney, Swinney, out, out,

out! Swinney, that is,

as there are protests at Holyrood, Dash-mac Labour councillors protest

at Holyrood. People will minimise it

at the sharp end but by the same token, no matter the service we

provide, and we do so to the best of our ability but we cannot

continue under the circumstances. But John Swinney says he is out to

protect services like these affordable homes.

He announced 330 million It was said that the Chancellor

had brought good news with I thought you might have had a more

cheerful disposition today. For years, he has called for more money

for capital spending and the Chancellor has delivered a 14%

increase. John Swinney said capital plans only just compensated for

earlier cuts. He will be Taylor's plans in three weeks. Today, the

guiding principles. We will be driven by our principles of

establishing a system which is fair and progressive and creating a

sustainable economy that has opportunities for all in Scotland.

Earlier, angry exchanges over a sharp decline in oil revenues.

Labour claimed the SNP painted a misleading picture during the

referendum. It would be bad enough if the government had been off by

ten or 20% but the First Minister was out by 6000%. 6000% on the money

needed to fund our schools, hospitals and pensions. The day

after George Osborne's budget, which announced plans to reduce the

revenue budget of this Parliament by ?1.5 billion in real terms over the

remainder of this decade, what does she do? That should exercise their

Conservatives? No, she plays politics with the SNP. And so on to

John Sunny's detailed budget which will be presented to Parliament on

December 16. It will form a core element of political debate in the

run-up to Holyrood elections next year. Opposition parties want to get

away from the constitutional debate and move onto a challenge to the SNP

to say what they would do with new tax and welfare powers which are

coming the way of Holyrood. John Swinney intends to rise to that

challenge but he wants to tread a line between condemning constraints

upon spending from the UK Government, and demonstrating his

capacity to ameliorate those constraints.

So has the Chancellor cleverly backed the SNP into a corner with

Shortly before we came on air, I spoke to Russell Gunson

from the Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland,

How much of a problem is the Scottish Government facing? Scotland

as a whole is the an enormous challenge from this Spending Review,

with the real terms cut in each of the next four years overall to the

budget. But moreover, that would be hard enough after five-year is

spending increases, but this comes on the back of five years of

posterity already. So they are getting new tax welfare powers in

April. If they use the new tax powers to reverse the spending cuts

entirely, how much wood income tax have rise? As an illustration rather

than a suggestion, it would take 3p in the pound to reduce these cuts.

However, whether that is possible politically or even desirable is

another question, and it is more an idea of the scale of the challenge

that Scotland as a whole theses rather than a potential policy we

are suggesting. Are there other things the Government could do to

offset these cuts, or RE saying they are going to have to think about

spending cuts? Scotland and the Scottish parliament as a whole has a

choice, and the choice with the new powers is either to raise tax

revenue - that can happen of course to raising taxes, but also drew

growing her economy - or secondly to work out where are these cuts are

best made. It may be a mix of those. It may be that the Scottish

parliament chooses to end these cuts and end this territory in Scotland.

It is a debate that absolutely needs to involve the whole of Scotland. It

is not just the SNP that will have to set out his plans before the next

election on how they will use these powers, if they were use. There is a

challenge for the whole of Scotland here, in that we have an election

next year that will at least set the long-term direction for the Scottish

Parliament. We have a budget before them from John Swinney that again,

whether it is one year, two years, the full four years, will lay out

some plans. But this is a debate that is an absolutely huge one that

needs to match the challenge we are facing, which is enormous. It sounds

premature, then, to talk about the end of posterity. Absolutely. These

are deep cuts in themselves. The back of five years of austerity

across the UK, it is a challenge for Scotland, for local authorities

across the UK. The idea of an end of austerity is premature. There is no

change to the amount the Chancellor is hoping to save in terms of

welfare spending cuts, so do we know, yet, hoodies are going to fall

on? In terms of welfare, it looked at face value less bad than we

expected, in the U-turn on tax credits. However, tax credits are

being phased out and universal credits Baisden, and the cuts to

universal credit are being phased out and universal credits based on,

and the cuts to universal credit or maintain. So therefore the cuts are

delayed rather than stopped. So you are right to suggest that the

poorest in Scotland may well still face the same amount of Scots as

they were expected to from the summer budget. We must leave it

there. Thanks for coming in this evening.

For the first time in 50 years, Scottish scientists are working

with an entirely new type of solid matter.

Well, these so-called "spontelectric"

materials could help explain a pretty fundamental question -

Our science correspondent Kenneth Macdonald explains,

Space - not quite as empty as you might think. In the intense vacuum

and a low temperatures of space, close of DOS, gas and simple

molecules, they are at the nursery were stars are being born. At

Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, they are creating the same

conditions, only for smaller scale. What we have here is a vacuum

chamber. At the top we have our refrigerator. And they have created

a vacuum like that in interstellar space. We work at variable

pressures. If you think about your household vacuum cleaner, the

pressure is about 100 of atmospheric. -- very low pressures.

We go to 100 billionth of atmospheric pressure.

We can also kill down the inside of that to just a few degrees above

absolute zero. It's all to create a new type of stuff.

it can be a crystal like this metal.

If is more irregular, then it is like this glass.

But what is in there, spontelectrics, is a new form

a gas like carbon monoxide becomes a solid, with massive electric field,

Because the conditions in the lab mimic those where

it could explain why a sun like our own was the right

We need molecules to help form small stars.

Without small stars you don't necessarily get stars that

live very long and you don't get evolution.

so the idea of having small stories is linked together.

Spontelectrics was first created in Denmark.

Heriot-Watt University is taking them forward.

But so far, spontelectrics are too small to see.

To give you a size scale, the human here is about a micron across, one

made from eater. We are working with things typically between ten and 15

nanometres, which is 100 times smaller. We can't see them. They are

very volatile, hence the low temperatures. And we have to look at

them indirectly. This research is that a very early stage. One

potential spin off could be better video displays. More intriguingly,

it could explain why we are all here.

With me this evening are two seasoned commentators - the author

David Torrance and the Guardian's Scotland correspondent Libby Brooks.

Welcome to you both. Let's top first of all about the Spending Review as

the dust settles and we try to work out what it all means. One thing is

clear - the Scottish Government will have to make tough decisions on

spending. We heard Russell Gunson from the IPPR earlier saying income

tax would have to do raised by 3p a band. Do you think any party would

seriously consider those kind of income tax rises? No. Across all

parties across the last decade or so, there has been a quiet consensus

that income tax never goes up. It stays the same rate gets cut. There

is ably right orthodoxy that you don't win the election pledging tax

increases. When you're on a fixed budget, the blog rant is getting

squeezed year after year, and you're not prepared to put up tax, you have

to cut. We see complaints from Scottish local authorities at the

moment, that is really starting to bite. There is not much there that

can be sliced from local authority and departmental budgets. Has the

Chancellor backed them into a corner of your? It certainly does seem that

Osborne has thrown down the gauntlet to Swinney to see what he is going

to do in the budget that is coming up at the beginning of December. The

problem that he faces, of course, is that these new taxes, the new tax

powers coming to Scotland, are also causing problems before they have

even started. The Office for Budget Responsibility was forecasting that

the London buildings transaction tax and the new Scottish income tax

aren't going to bring back as many receipts as people had expected, and

that does mean a difficult balancing act for Swinney. And of course, the

guests from the IPPR was hoping for a mature and sensible debate in the

run-up to Holyrood elections. Is there any hope of that? I think it's

extremely unlikely. The Spending Review has changed the dynamic, of

course. Scottish Labour was hoping it would be set up for this

substantial policy debate about mitigating tax credit cuts, but

there are going to be no tax credit cuts at least in the short-term. So

that puts Scottish Labour in a difficult position. We will see what

they know campaign on, that strategy was set out. It also gets John

Swinney off the hook to an extent. He doesn't have to find the money to

mitigate that. But still the pressure is on in terms of what he

may do with income tax powers. More gloomy news for the Scottish

Government and for Aberdeen since last year. Actors and 500 people

have lost their jobs in the North Sea oil industry. -- 5500. At First

Minister's Questions, Nicola Sturgeon reacted angrily when

Scottish Labour use this as a stick to beat her with. This is a

challenging time for the oil and gas sector, which is why the task force

I established earlier this year is working hard to support the industry

at this time. But every time people here laboured gleefully crowing

about the challenges in the oil and gas sector, they realised how little

Labour actually care about people's jobs and livelihoods. She came out

fighting there, but she seemed a bit rattled, didn't she? I do think it

is they are enough for her to point out that it is not the SNP's fault

that the oil prices plummeting. Regardless how you feel about their

fastness and looseness with the predictions during the referendum

campaign. But it is difficult. It is also, given that those tax receipts

do actually go to the Treasury, it is technically up to George Osborne

to sort this out. But the pain is felt up here in Scotland. It is

gorgeous jobs and Scottish families affected. But politically a problem?

I have spoken to some in the parties say they will bounce back, and they

have a point. We have been here before. There was a similar crash in

the mid-19 80s. But you can't rely on that. It is volatile, and we have

seen that over the past year or so. So it's bad timing, it is bad lot,

not only for those involved, but politically for the SNP. I thought

the First Minister's response was a bit weak. She threw it back at Kezia

Dugdale and accused her of hypocrisy. But because the SNP went

so strongly on oil predictions that turned out to be nonsense. One other

thing, Alex Salmond missed the debate in Parliament today because

he was unveiling a portrait of himself. Do you think it was unfair

of them to accuse them of pitting his eagle before politics? I don't

think one could ever accuse Alex Salmond of not taking his own ego

very seriously. He made a legitimate calculation about what was going to

get him most attention today, and seems to have done quite nicely out

of it. You were there. What did you think of the painting? I think it is

a good likeness of Alex Salmond a year ago, maybe less so now.

Whatever you think of him, he is a big historical figure, and big

historical figures belong in the Scottish portrait Gallery.

David's back on Monday night, same time.