02/03/2016 Scotland 2016

The freeze is off and the thaw is on.

Council tax is being reformed by the Scottish Government.

Nicola Sturgeon says she's reforming council tax -

but what happened to the SNP's radical plans to ditch it?

We'll debate with the minister in charge, Labour and the Conservatives

as the Government's accused of merely tinkering.

And concussion concerns - is rugby being kicked into touch

as some medics demand that tackling in school is given the heave?

"We'll scrap the unfair council tax," the SNP manifesto

Today the First Minister announces some reforms to adjust bands

so ?100 million extra is raised for education.

Critics say - nine years on - the SNP's being timid

and squandering an opportunity for real reform.

Here's our local government correspondent, Jamie McIvor.

For a relatively modest change, this has been a long time in the making.

The SNP used to want to replace the council tax completely, now they are

opting for mere reform. I'm announcing today some short-term

changes to the current council tax system that helped to make it fairer

by asking those at the top to pay a bit more, allowing those at the

bottom and to pay a bit less. Over the long term, we want to reduce

council 's' dependence on central government grant, diversify forces

of funding. Arbor tries in Glasgow, it is home to many millionaires but

is a street of contrasts. It is the people who live in the more

expensive houses who feel the impact. They could see their council

tax bills rise significantly. But at the other end of the street,

the impact will be very different. Here there will not be any dramatic

changes, but Glasgow City Council could, of course, choose to put in

council tax by up to 3%. Here is how the owners of the more

expensive homes could be affected. According to the Scottish

Government, the average band D household would pay more than ?100 a

year extra, the average household in the very highest band would see

their bills rise by more than ?500. There will be debate about the

merits of the SNP proposals, but they are modest foursome. A

commission last year looked at local government taxation carefully and

came up with some more radical options. We have had a commission on

tax reform which did a really good job, collected vast amounts of

information and evidence, consulted throughout Scotland and concluded

that although they did not come up with a specific, the council tax

should end, the council tax stands still should end, there is an unfair

scheme of taxation. What we have is a council tax with a fewer bells and

whistles. The SNP's opponents were, mostly,

unimpressed. The SNP seem more determined to take control from

local communities and authorities. They think they know best in this

place over my shoulder, I think local communities know that. These

plans are insulting and timid. We believe local government should be

more autonomous, we believe in strengthening local democracy,

eating them the powers to raise money they want to spend on local

services. The SNP argued that the money raised will boost spending on

education. For some, council tax is just one issue. Less than 15% of

their cash comes from it. I am surprised so little has been

announced from the point of view of adjusting the bands, it looks like

tinkering around the edges, if that was to deliver the quality it could

have eaten a considerable number of years ago.

As the Scottish Government becomes responsible for income tax, we

propose that a portion of council 's' current grant is replaced by the

assignation of income tax revenues. That'll help to incentivise councils

to help us grow the economy, the more successful we are there, the

more revenue there will be for local services.

While radical council tax reform might be of the SNP agenda for now,

voters can decide if they approve in May.

Joining me now to discuss council tax reform we have the Local

Government Minister Marco Biagi from Edinburgh,

the Conservative Finance Spokesperson Murdo Fraser

is in Dundee, and here with me is Labour's Community Spokesperson,

Gentlemen, good evening. Thank you for joining me. Marco Biagi, with me

I have the manifesto from 2007, Alex Salmond wrote, we will scrap the

unfair council tax and introduce a local income tax. After nine years,

why do we still have the unfair council tax? Gulp I recall it was

the parties you have represented by others tonight but voted to stop us

doing much. There has been an election since then, in 2011 we were

elected on a promise to freeze the council tax and consult with others

on a fairer system. We have frozen the council tax, we have a

commission that I was co-chair of, we are putting forward a series of

reforms including short-term reforms to council tax, bigger changes

indicated in terms of the fundamental shift that comes when

you take the income tax and put it into the local governments fear and,

indeed, also in the package announced... It is not local income

taxed, your critics say you are ducking reforms, the party says you

squander this opportunity. We have not had a re-evaluation since 1991.

We are the first party to put these proposals forward. The criticism is

strange coming from people who have not put forward what they want to

do. Perhaps we might hear some of that this evening. We have a

measured step that will in the next year, and people need clarity, the

20 17th do changes that will raise a little bit more for schools from

people at the very top, bearing in mind three quarters of households

will pay no more, but which set in place the bigger changes over the

medium-term through the Parliament whereby a portion of income tax will

move into the local governments fear and a bigger chunk... Let's hear

from your opponent, Ken Macintosh. Mr Biaggi made that point, you have

been quick to criticise the Scottish Government's proposals, what does

Labour propose? We will announce shortly, but we're here today

because the SNP have told us what they plan to do. I was hoping that

Mr Biaggi would start with an apology for a broken promise. He

promised to abolish the unfair council tax, the punitive council

tax and replace it with something based on ability to pay. He promised

it twice. I was wondering what excuse he would come up with,

apparently it is our fault, that the opposition parties, despite the fact

they have in overall majority in parliament, the other parties that

stop them doing this. Apps Marco would like to apologise? What will

lead the cupboard instead? We have outlined several policies, we will

outline our policies on local government before the election, in

the next few days and weeks. We have been waiting nine years to hear how

the SNP will replace the punitive unfair council tax. After nine years

they come up with a policy remarkably similar, less fire and

less progressive, than the one we stood on in 2007. De Vos Murdo

Fraser, turning the clock back to the early 1990s, the Conservatives

have perhaps poisoned the well of local taxation with the poll tax? It

is difficult for any parties to move on? So it is our fault? You could

not make this up. Four years we have had to put up with the SNP telling

us they would scrap the hated... The hated council tax, telling us that

tinkering at the edges would not be good enough. They set up a tax

commission, we do not take part because we say we are having run

parallel tax commission under the chairmanship of Sir Ian Botham.

People like Marco Biagi criticise us for not participating -- said Ian

Macmillan. The SNP today are giving two fingers to their own cross-party

commission and adopting wholescale, more or less would forward, key

recommendations from our low tax commission. I would be sending

Nicola Sturgeon eight Copyright charge tonight if I were certainly

in Mac Millan. You're saying it is making Scotland more expensive to

live in, but council taxes compared to the lower than in England? You

have to put together what has been proposed in council tax with the

changes already put in for the stamp duty replacement and the way that it

lumps of very substantial additional charges to larger properties. What

estate agents and property agents will tell you, outside hot spots

like the centre of Edinburgh and Glasgow, it is causing a stagnation

in the property market. We are already getting evidence that there

is a perception across the UK that Scotland is becoming more expensive

to live in because of the combination of other potential tax

changes and LBBT. Let's be careful about the overall impact. Marco

Biagi, Nicola Sturgeon had her photocall, you are saying it is ?100

million extra for education. I think you're worrying about what Labour

are saying with the extra penny in income tax, and the Lib Dems. Why is

it being ring fenced for education? The First Minister has been very

clear since she took office that education is a personal priority,

something we should be judged by. In the recent Budget we doubled the

attainment fund going into school to target the intractable issues of

attainment. This is a clear priority. I was quite amused by

Murdo Fraser, he seemed to be in favour and against what we put

forward. If his policy is to put ?500 on each household to fund state

schools, he is deviating from the political lifetime that he has

behind him. This is a progressive change not just because there are

reforms to the basis of council tax, that is a modest improvement, but

because of the wholesale move to take some of the income tax we

already pay, not an additional income tax, but serve the income tax

already paid and put into local government. I would like to put that

to Ken Macintosh, you reemphasised modernist, but you are against the

assignation of the income tax? Why don't you want to share with your

local government colleagues? We put a policy to the Department last week

in which we would use the powers of the parliament to use progressive

taxation measures and give ?500 million for education through local

government. This is one of the most harebrained parts of the SNP

proposal, they want to assigning contextual local Godman. John

Swinney has spent the last three months trying to negotiate a deal

with the Treasury, income tax revenue is volatile, it goes up and

down, and he insisted, quite rightly, in my view, on a no

detriment clause. I would like to hear there is no detriment to local

authorities. It is not fair, some authorities, the income tax revenue

stream will be very high. The more prosperous authorities like

Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Edinburgh, and the most deprived,

will have very little income. That is not fair or right. Murdo Fraser,

will this issue come back again? We will have this election in May, the

2017 council election? We have waited nine years for the Scottish

Government to come up with a change to the council tax, it is a very

modest change, Sun is quite sensible. Given it has taken so long

to come up with alternatives, I would not expect more radical

alternatives any time soon. The system is well understood and I

don't think we should impose a radical change. Murdo Fraser, Ken

Macintosh and Marco Biagi, thank you for joining us.

A group of 70 doctors and academics has called for a ban on tackling

They highlight the risks of concussion which -

they say - can have lifelong consequences for children.

But supporters of the sport say it challenges youngsters

And the Scottish Rugby Union - which says it's committed to player

welfare at every level - says every sport carries some risk.

These pupils are members of the elite School of rugby at Wallace

Hartley in Stirling. Their coach has been playing rugby since he was

five, not surprisingly he is a passionate advocate of" children

getting a lot out of it, they become more confident within themselves and

their own abilities, especially just the physical aspect of it, they

really progress and they become a lot fitter and confident about their

ability in other sports as well as rugby.

It seems that his pupils agree. It is really good to work as a team.

It can be physical sometimes, do you enjoy that?

Yes. It is good fitness and it is fun.

I guess you have not been playing for one, why are you playing rugby

and what did you think about it as a game?

It is fun, it is a team sport and you get fitness as well.

It includes fitness and good physical nature. For football that

is like skill and running but this is about strength and all-round

sport. The school has a bit of a tradition

of producing players of the highest level. Finn Russell went to the

school. Yes, it is really good for all-round

rugby. There are only a small number of schools that can help rugby

players like this. But rugby is inherently a contact

sport and that has its own dangers. It was my fault, it was the tackle

technique that I had used was wrong, I got my head in front of someone's

my and I got it in the side of the head and knocked out.

I not worried you could have got damaged, there is the potential for

injury, is there not? There is, but I do not think it

affected me. I took plenty of time to recover after my head north and

it is taken very seriously, especially for the safety of the

children, that is the most important thing.

Those behind the letters today have said that tackles have no place in

school sports like this. But is it necessary to take away all the rest?

-- risk. I'm now joined in the studio

by John Beattie, the former Scotland rugby international

and now a BBC presenter. He's investigated the issue

of concussion in the sport. And from London we have

Allyson Pollock, professor of public Guidelines to both of you, thank you

for joining me. To you first, John, no tackling in the scrums and rocks,

is the game of rugby being sacrificed?

If you take tackling out of the game, you no longer have rugby. I

think Allyson and I both have things in in this. I have children playing

in the game, but I've looked at rugby, and I think, in terms of my

life it has been of incredible value, and where we are all beating

around the bush is that we're guessing as to whether rugby is good

or bad for you. We know that football is good for you,

International studies have shown that it is better to play it than

not to play it. So we are all doing programmes about concussion, we have

parents that are terrified, children who are terrified that they might

get blinded or injured playing rugby. We have to have one of these

school studies that find out if rugby is good for you. And then we

will know. At the moment, we both have thieves and we both wonder, but

we have to find out. If we find out it is good for us, it will be a

great game. That has been a brilliant game for me.

Professor Pollock, do you have the research evidence to back this up?

There is a lot of worldwide evidence from surveys, but John is correct,

the big problem is that neither the government or the rugby unions have

been collecting and monitoring injury data in the children.

However, we do have enough evidence from what has been happening from

surveys to suggest that there is the potential, there are high risks and

rates of injuries. There is a study in Ulster that was conducted in 28

schools and published in December of this year that it the hundred and 25

more than 304 were actually injured in one season. That is 36% injury

rate. These were serious injuries, fractures, dislocated shoulders,

head traumas and concussion. John is correct, we do not have a lot of

studies but the ones that we have show that more than 90% of the

injuries are occurring during contact. It is a no-brainer, we must

remove the collision and contact until it is shown that it is safe

enough to be reintroduced. John, a no-brainer and the little

evidence that there is suggest there is a real risk there.

I am not sure that I agree because only one out of every six head

admissions to hospital from children are from any kind of sport or

recreational activity. The most dangerous thing that a child can do

is to play unsupervised and, OK, we could assume that rugby is fairly

dangerous, I have had my operations and Ehab replacement. On balance,

was the game good for me or not? I do not know, but I think it was. So

I would be unwilling to make any sweeping changes to rugby, I had a

phone call from an old physical education teacher friend who said

that children told him that they enjoy the contact. We do not know if

that is good or bad for you, but we must find that out. To rush into

taking this out of a game that is quite fun, although it causes

injury, would damage the game long term.

Professor Pollock, Abe going to far, is this risk reward, should children

be streamed in terms of weight or age, perhaps that would be something

that would help to tackle the problem?

One of the problems again is that we have no evidence that matching top

weight and age makes any difference. A lot of initiatives are rolled out

and are never evaluated. What we must know that more than 90% of the

injuries occurred during contact and collision and we know from the

number of studies that the rates and risks of injuries are high. That is

why they have to put the child at the centre and not just the interest

of the game. We are making some assumptions that you only get

benefits from rugby but you do not get them from the other sports and

other activities, which have lower injury rates. So it is not just

about what is unique to rugby, that is over egging the pudding a bit, it

is about what children get from physical activity and the enjoyment

of the game. We must remember that the most common reason for children

giving up rugby is the fear of injury or being injured, or the

interference with their education. So, John, do you think calls like

this are putting the rest of the future of rugby in jeopardy?

Yes, I worry about it as an expert. One of the numbers that I like as an

ex-auditor, only 5% of children in Scotland play rugby. It is not in

the school curriculum. Very schools play rugby, that 5% is fantastically

inflated by the way that the measure things in Scotland. I think it would

be alarmist. I think that we both agree, firstly, let us find out if

rugby is good or bad for you, then they can have these arguments, but

nobody knows. We should start in Scotland and find out if this game

is good for us. If it is good, let us expand.

Thank you both for joining me. Time for a look at the rest

of today's stories. Before I'm joined by my guests,

let's look at a clip The SNP's Angus Robertson laid out

what he saw as the benefits of the European Union,

pointing out that co-operation between countries meant

there was peace and not war. While the Prime Minister concentrate

on the positive arguments for EU membership and reject the approach

of Project Fear? My arguments about being stronger in

the reformed European Union and safer in the EU and better off and

that reformed EU are all positive arguments. I would add the Portland

that he makes that things like pollution crosses borders. --

pollution. So it make sense to work together. The fundamental point that

he makes is worth thinking about. He and I are both post-war children but

we must never forget that when we sit around that table, 70 years ago

these countries were murdering each other on the continent of Europe.

Joining me now to discuss is the investigations editor

for the Sunday Herald, Paul Hutcheon, and the Daily

Record's feature writer Anna Burnside.

Welcome both. Thank you for joining me. The bit of Prime Minister's

Questions today, Paul, Project Fear, that was the essence of the speech

of Nicola Sturgeon in London on Monday and today, the government

released what Iain Duncan Smith called a dodgy dossier.

Yes, I heard this phrase Project Fear a lot but I do not think that

people should be surprised that the inside would want to poke holes in

the campaign for Brexit. Even those who want to be the European Union

must admit that there are questions about our readmittance to the single

market. I think that criticisms of negative campaigning are a little

bit overplayed. What I find interesting about the Project Fear

aspect however is that there is a clear divide in the In campaign. The

Lib Dems and the SNP are speaking about the positive benefits of EU

membership. The other side you have Cameron and Osborne who have no love

of EU institutions, they are moderately Eurosceptics. They cannot

bring themselves to make the positive case and in that absence

what they do is go for the Brexit campaign.

Anna, I suppose that is a good point, Angus Robertson was pointing

out what he's as the benefits of the European Union and perhaps that is

things like increasing the rights of workers and perhaps the trimester

was not quick to recognise that. Yes, that is not something that

plays well with him or his supporters, those are the things

about the EU that Paul alluded to, they are uncomfortable with that,

they put on their CSI clubs on before the deal with those parts of

EU legislation. -- gloves. Looking at the dodgy dossier, the UK

Government looked at alternative models outside of the European

Union, IDS called at the dodgy dossier, it is getting to the point

where Cabinet ministers are arguing with each other, do you think that

David Cameron was correct to allow members of his government to

campaign for the different sides? I do not see how he could have

allowed anything other than that. He would have had problems. They would

have resigned if he had tried to put them. David Cameron was clever and

putting forward a quick referendum because this was always going to be

the case that this could expose what's within the Conservative

Party. At least they can contain them for a few months, we are only

talking about until June, you could have an after-shock after that,

perhaps defections to Ukip, but by the end of this year, this argument

will be done and dusted and the Conservative Party will look forward

to the next election. ?700 million aid package over three

years to help migrants is another big story as they prepare for a

likely summer crisis of refugees and migrants coming from over in Turkey.

All that money address the problem? Obviously, I hope so, but I think

that it will. It shows good will, it shows that it is being treated

seriously as an EU wide problem. We cannot as a European Union leave

Greece to do with this on their own. -- they have found themselves coping

with this huge influx of people that they have neither the infrastructure

or the money to deal with. Their economy is in the toilet. So this, I

hope, is going to start a process of helping them to cope and of setting

up a structure to cope with big serious crisis of this nature.

Paul, the EU has often been criticised of being too slow to

respond and I think that a lot of politicians you will be concerned as

to how the summer will play out with the migrant and refugee crisis.

There is an ardent of being too little, too late and that the

migration crisis has shown that the EU is not capable of dealing with

these sorts of problems. -- there is an argument. I have no doubt that in

the referendum campaign migration will be The Big Issue for the Brexit

side, it is the clearest issue, they will see that we should handle our

borders. It is something that the other side will struggle on, it is a

gut and emotional argument. Some people do not want to have it,

simply. It will be really close in the month of June.

And rock and roll is coming to Cuba, the Rolling Stones will play their

first gig the first leg by a Western band in Havana since 1959. President

Obama will go to see them as well. What role do you think music as to

play in geopolitics, global politics?

I think we have come to a pretty sorry state if we need a skinny old

dude in a sparkly jacket to do the job of politics for us! You know,

the Rolling Stones, the Cubans have waited all of these years for a rock

and roll concert and they get a load of pensioners! I am not sure they

are getting that good a deal out of it.

Paul, quite a transformation for Cuba to have that kind of thing

happening, not least of all, the president of the United States are

arriving as well on the night! Where we are now is where we should

have been 40 years ago. I can understand the logic of the US and

the trade embargo but it did not work. But when you fight a Communist

country with Western goods and Western music, people will want more

of it and give me the Rolling Stones over Communist poetry every day of

the week. And David Hasselhoff at the Berlin

Wall, did he have an impact? Or Communist, they have all of the

violations of communism for all of these years and any have the

detritus of popular culture that they do not want any more. They have

not had a good deal out of it. Perhaps Cuban culture might be lost

as America takes over Western-backed I am not sure what Cuban culture is

or I am not also sure what British or Scottish culture is either.

You get good and bad books. I am glad that Cuba is finally catching

up. Thank you Paul and Anna for joining

me this evening. That's it for tonight

and for this week. So join her then at

the usual time, bye-bye.