17/10/2016 Scotland 2016

"Every young person deserves to be loved," says Nicola Sturgeon.

But as the First Minister announces a root-and-branch review

of the care system, why is it failing so many children?

The First Minister's announcement was enthusiastically welcomed

by young people who've experienced the care system.

But what changes do they want to see?

In Northern Ireland, Assembly members consider a motion

Can Scotland make common cause with them on the issue?

And we discuss a subject of no little controversy -

There was hardly a dry eye in the house when Nicola Sturgeon

spoke about the experiences of children in care.

It's not often we see a leader fight back the tears

during a conference speech, but you got the sense

on Saturday that this is an issue the First Minister

School exclusions are down. The number of children living in

opponents rather than temporary placements is up. But we cannot

ignore the reality for too many children in care. Only 6% go to

university. Nearly half will suffer mental health issues. Half of the

adult prison population are people who lived in care when they were

growing up. Worst of all, and this breaks my heart, a young person who

has been in care is 20 times more likely to be dead by the time they

are 25 than a young person who has not. Conference, this simply has too

change and I am determined that it will change.

Nicola Sturgeon there, announcing an independent

root-and-branch review of the care system.

An announcement which was warmly welcomed by the invited audience

I'm joined by two of them - Harry O'Neill.

And also by Vonnie Sandlan, who's a board member

of the charity Who Cares? Scotland.

Your experiences of deer were relatively good but you still face

barriers. I had a relatively good care experience. I had a lot of

support. I lived in different children's houses where I was able

to be shown love, support, where I was able to be aspired for, and

where I when I was having a bad day or was feeling down, I was able to

be picked back up. Unfortunately I am one of the exceptions to that

rule. That is not the same for a lot of other young people. A lot of my

friends, who just have not received the same sort of support that I

have... What is the barrier that they are facing? It is difficult. I

hear different people who talk about staff members and Kier experience,

people who have gone on to become staff members in units and foster

parents, people telling me, they are not allowed to show love. In many

instances they have been told that that is not okayed to show love, it

is not professional. But we are putting young people into a system

to protect them and show them love and make sure that they are nurtured

and care for well. From the horrible statistics that we heard the First

Minister talk about it is obviously still not happening. To a certain

extent the state almost washed its hands of you when you turn 16. You

effectively found yourself homeless. Yes, I was 16 in 1998, the middle of

my Highers, when I had to move into homeless accommodation because of

family relationship breakdown. Young people are seeing our

experience is so bad that we need to legislate and that is where the age

of entitlement of Kier raised. For the same time -- this announcement

has cross-party support. Can you legislate for showing love? You can

legislate better than what we have now. The First Minister says

statistics and I'm positive destinations for people unfive are

stark. Half of the adult prison population will have been people in

clear, 30% of the homeless people have been people and Kier, only 6%

of people who have been interior go to university. If I was going to a

programme looking for business investment if I asked for ?1.6

billion to invest into my idea and had such appalling outcomes as the

care system currently does, it would be turned down quite rightly. Is

that you experience, low expectations? Yes, I have seen a lot

of my peers have glass ceilings put up for them. They have been taken

into rooms by guidance teachers and said, here is to for college, rather

than, let us aspiring theatre, what is it that you want to do? It is a

system that a lot of the time reacts to young people rather than act

proactively. A lot of the time it is so difficult because when you do not

have anybody to aspire for you, how can you aspire for yourself? It is

made a lot harder by the actual systematic process of the care

system, the way it is driven. I had good experiences but I still had to

go to meetings every three months to talk about my life. Every single

person who was in charge of me responsible for me was at those

meetings and giving reports on how I was doing. I felt like I always had

to be the best version of myself and fight what I wanted and every

meeting. We should not be having to do that, we should not be having to

fight for what we want. We should have this system act as our parents.

Do you think one of the problems as a stereotype of people who have been

a care, that they are all troubled and will never amount to anything?

Yes, this is something that group-mac and other groups have

challenged. Young people are in dear because the state has decided that

is the best place for them to be, it is not through any fault of their

own. It is essential that that they are saying this is a safer solution

for young people we had to make sure that provide him with the

opportunity to reach the full potential. There are so many

elements that are still not working. Whether sisters or brothers get to

stay together in a placements. That is important. That is a vital thing

that we have to look at. That looks like this was a subject close to

Nicola Sturgeon's heart. Was that the feeling you got? Yes, I have had

conversations with Michael out before. Bat with Nicola Sturgeon. It

is close to her heart. Will she deliver? Lots of governments set up

reviews. Will she deliver on your aspirations? She has been proactive

in her approach towards this. She has been contacting the organisation

and wanting this to work and putting everything in place to make this

work. She has started as she means to go on. Thank you.

Well, another announcement Nicola Sturgeon made at conference

was her intention to table specific proposals to keep Scotland

in the single market, even if the rest of the UK

She may not be able to look to Northern Ireland for help, though.

Stormont's Assembly members today voted against a motion calling

for Northern Ireland to be granted special status

I'm joined by the BBC's Northern Ireland political editor,

Mark Devenport, who's in our Belfast studio.

Tell us more about today's vote? This is an argument that has been

made in particular by Irish nationalists and they rely on the

fact that Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU by 56% - 44%. There

are potential fears about what would be the repercussions of Brexit in

terms of maybe it's creating more of a hard older than we have at the

moment with the Irish Republic which will of course remain in the

European Union. At the moment it is a completely open border. Also

concerns about Northern Ireland's dependence on European peace funding

and cross-border funding. The idle it was made today by the smaller of

the two nationalist parties in the Assembly, the SDLP, but they lost by

one vote, 47 votes- 46 votes with the Unionist parties voting entirely

against this motion. It has complicated the matter because they

are trying to argue this with the EU the EU will see you all Assembly has

turned the stone. Is there a specific worry amongst

Unionists that of Northern Ireland had a special deal to remain in the

single market that would end up being more aligned with the public

than with the UK? Here is the complication. The Ulster

union, the smaller of the two Unionist parties, campaigns to

remain in the EU, and last week they supported a motion which would have

involved keeping Northern Ireland in the single market. You could see

right now they are recognising the UK decision but they are really on

the side of a soft Brexit. But when the looked at today's motion about

special recognition for Northern Ireland's status within the EU, I

think they were concerned that it was a thin end of the wedge that

could drive a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. They

thought that was a step too far so they came out against it.

The Scottish Government has worked with Stormont in the past on issues.

Is there much common courtier? Both areas will argue that because there

was a remain in force in both areas they should be granted some kind of

flexibility and Nicola Sturgeon may be able to make common cause with

Martin McGuinness, the Deputy First Minister, who is in favour of some

kind of special status with Northern Ireland, but when they meet together

at the joint ministerial committee next week the difficulty in terms of

Common cause with Northern Ireland as a whole is that Arlene Foster,

our First Minister, has firmly on the Lee side of the argument. You

can talk to one element of the executive year and top to the other

side and get precisely the opposite. Thank you.

The BBC's been on the search for Scotland's favourite book.

An expert panel chose 30 titles, by authors born or based

in Scotland, representing some of the finest writing

The list was then whittled down to 10 books and,

following a public vote, the winner was announced

And it was Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song.

Suzanne Allan has been perusing the list.

From the classics to crying, contemporary to cult, we love our

books. This survey was cast over the summer. Votes were cast for over 30

top novels by writers born or based in Scotland. They include classics

like Lanark and Sunset Song, to Harry Potter and the philosopher 's

Stone. Harry Potter and the philosopher's

Stone has sold millions of copies and is loved by adults and children

alike. Perhaps it has something to do with

living in a dark cupboard but Harry had always been small and skinny for

his age. I first read the book when I was 23

and I loved that immediately. The story of an orphan boy with special

powers who is drawn into a complex adult world, who has two avenge the

killers of his parents, who has two fight evil personified by his

nemesis is exceptional. The reason I love the book is the heart. Tenth

was memories and confessions of a justified sinner. I had a desire to

slay him, it is true, and such a desire as a thirsty man has two

drink. They say a lack of boat, a clear

moral certitude that foreshadows totalitarian mindset of the 20th

century and echoes religious fanatics of earlier and current

times. And the eventual winner Sunset Song.

The wind shook their cloaks. I first read Sunset Song when I was

in my early teens, maybe 13 or 14, and that resonated with me firstly

because it is a wonder. Read beautifully written but also said

something about the history of the country I grew up in and resonated

strongly with me as I young Scottish woman. So we picked a classic as

number one. Does that mean we are now static and traditional?

Trainspotting made it to the top ten and was about heroin abuse, and

Harry Potter a wizard's tale that sold in the millions. So what are

books for? I think escapism is a great source of reading. And

broadening your horizons. Do you think that list this pretty

representative of what people read in Scotland? I guess. I think,

having Harry Potter wonder, I think you would have to have one of them.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was probably one of my favourite books

from school, going with that because of the nice memories. That is

something so lovely about reading a book. You can lose yourself in

another role for a length of time, but is a good egg judged by volume

of sales or by what the critics say? -- but is a good book. It depends

what you say about a good book, it is quite a broad term, so you will

have people talking about the popular books, and people like Ian

Rankin, crime novelist who sells more than a literary novelist would,

so always that distinction between a quality piece of fiction and an

entertainment. I've never really understood that. I always think

books that entertain, so if you are entertained by a literary novel,

that's great, and also if it is a crime novel. For me, it is

All-Blacks. The top ten books rented in Glasgow are mostly crime. -- for

me, it is all books. Maybe it does not matter what you read, as long as

you do it. Well, I've been speaking

to Jenny Niven, who's Head of Literature

at Creative Scotland. And Lesley McDowell,

who's a literary critic for The Herald among others,

about that list. Jennie, you weren't involved in

drawing up the initial list of 30 books, what do you make of the top

ten the Public chose? On one level I thought it was fantastic just to see

the range, all kinds of things in there, experimental fiction, crime

thrillers, so many great stories well told, and all the lots of

classics you really wanted to see in there, those were there, but on the

other hand, there was quite a lot of diversity and richness and

interesting stuff on the long list of 30 that did not make the cut, so

it was always going to be highly contentious, but a good list in the

end, but a few I would have liked to see make it higher up the list. Give

us a couple of examples? Goodness! The Trick Is To Keep Breathing is

probably my favourite, but I might change. Some of the others, some of

the newer titles, such as by Jenny Fagan, Panoptican, it would be good

to see that they are. Is this just based on literary merits? One of the

things about being asked to draw up a long list, it is how you can

interpret that question as to what is a favourite book. Is it the most

read? Most borrowed from libraries? Most critically acclaimed? Most

often doubted for the screen? Different ways to approach that, and

we had to be a lot more catholic in the approach to it. -- most often

adapted. Trying to approach it from a different angle. And you could

approach it from sales, and say that Harry Potter should be at the top,

but Sunset Song made it to the top, maybe because we all read it at

school? It was read at school, generally topping lists for Scottish

books, it has for the last few years, it has become very popular

and the film that came out recently with not have done it any harm. I

agree with Jenny, the long list had really inventive titles in it. And

any list that puts together, JK Rowling and others together, you may

not see them together, and if somebody reads some of us because of

this list, as far as I am concerned at is worth it. But the short list,

I'm disappointed there are only a couple of women on it for a start.

That is a point, in 30, you try to get a balance of gender, but

whittling down to the top ten, that did not quite work out. It asks the

question, how do you create a classic? Some things we could put on

the list because of the impact of the writing, Hywel Poole story was

told, but not necessarily -- home well the story was told, but maybe

some we were not comfortable about what was the best Scottish book, it

is complex, but we had a much more balanced book, 17 men, 13 women, so

it was not 50-50, but much closer and in the final short list, you had

eight by men, two by women, only a few with female characters at the

heart of the story, not reflective of the long list. But there is

anxiety about what we can say is the most important book. Definitely,

looking at the canon of Scottish books has changed recently, but

things like The Thirty Nine Steps and those slightly safer titles made

it onto the list. Yes, and listening to that report, in Glasgow

libraries, crime dominates the top ten in terms of what people borrow.

Do you think that is becoming accepted as part of the Scottish

canon, the soft top tartan noir genre? I hope so, and looking at the

likes of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner,

but the question is about whether it is an important book or a favourite

book, that is slightly different. A favourite book does engender some

Conservatives, because favourite quite often means what you find most

comforting for legible or whatever. But some of the titles in that list

are very tricky and challenging, as Jenny said, such as Lanark in there,

very experimental, but in a favourite novel, it can be something

you find very likeable and also a number of titles in the short list

have been films and film and television makes a massive

difference. Do you think people are also determine to pick novels with a

definite Scottish team? Harry Potter was in the top ten, but is it a

Scottish novel as such? There were discussions on Facebook about

whether it is classed as a Scottish novel, and interesting how the film

linked it with Edinburgh as it did, but you could argue, as is cottage

novel, yes, but its popularity partly due to film and TV, I think

it is a little bit questionable. -- as a Scottish novel. But when you

look at Jordan is literature, I would like to see others. -- look at

children's literature. What is your personal favourite, Jenny? My

goodness! I love that The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was there. But I

would have another Muriel Spark novel, the comfort of strangers. But

Lanark also would be close to my top ten. But I will stick with the trick

is to keep breathing, I think that is probably the book that had the

most impact on me at the time I read it and has just changed the way I be

better since. Jenny Niven and Lesley McDowell, thank you both very much

indeed. Well, let's find out what our news

reviewers' favourite books are. I'm joined by the editor

of The Big Issue, Paul McNamee, and the editor of the Common Space

website Angela Haggerty. You are a big Muriel Spark fan,

Paul, because you are in your prime? I am a big Muriel Spark fan but I

favourite book was not on the list and was not mentioned. It is Ba. And

equally and also Ballad of Peckham Wry. And also Laidlad by William

McIlvanney. Difficult to read, Laidlaw? Not at all. Angela, what

was your favourite? I was pleased to see Trainspotting made the list and

I am a big Harry Potter fan. Did you like Harry Potter because you had

seen the movie? No, I had read the book and it is cheeky, I used it as

one of my coursework books when I studied English at secondary school,

as I thought it would be funny to abort some of the characters. That

is my Trainspotting story. Let us talk about the care system, on

Saturday, you got the feeling this means a lot to Nicola Sturgeon?

Clearly, it was very emotional, and as the guest you had earlier who

were speaking to her, they can vouch for that, something close to her

heart. And it is good and important that this is really crap and

something happens because there is this gap that kids come out of care,

at 18, are kind of left, or coming out of foster care, looked after

until 21, and for those of us lucky enough to have a supportive family

network, we don't think twice at 18, doors are opening and opportunities

present, kids coming out of care without that network, that is a

terrible indictment on us, on society, that where not doing more

to help them. You don't normally see leaders at conference being quite so

emotional and Nicola Sturgeon, by her own admission, quite a shy

politician and somebody who does not often show emotions, quite a change

from her? I was really struck by it. I was at the conference covering it

and when Nicola Sturgeon came off of the stage after the speech and she

went down and embraced some of the young people there, and the motion

was so visible, so many people crying and really hugging Nicola

Sturgeon, hanging on to her, and you could see how much it meant to them.

And as a hard-hearted journalist, I felt that was quite moving and

something that was unusual to see. It was very, very sincere, it did

not seem orchestrated or choreographed, as political

conferences often are, a genuine display of emotion. And maybe being

listened to for the first time? Absolutely, what those young people

have said is they feel Nicola Sturgeon has not just done the bread

and butter politics, but has heard what they have had to say and taken

it on board. It will be interesting to see what the details of the

review will be like and how it will be led. With your big issue hats on,

I imagine giving some of the lack of opportunity jump people have spoken

about, many will end up homeless? Yes, and about 30% of people leaving

care find themselves homeless. That is absolutely be clear -- the case

for members of the bigger issue -- The Big Issue. And some people have

not find a place within key and broken family homes have meant that

the system was not there to help them at all. It is a massive...

Everything in early stages has a massive impact on what comes later.

25th anniversary of The Big Issue, you have an interview with Theresa

May, pledging I think ?40 million at tackling the causes of homelessness.

Quite significant? I think it is significant. Prevention as a means

of moving forward is something we believe in and it is refreshing to

hear the Prime Minister advocate that and follow our lead. Quite how

that will go, I'm not sure. ?40 million is not a massive figure, so

we will see how that plays out. Ukip's Steven Woolfe announced

earlier today that he has withdrawn his application

to contest the party leadership. The MEP, who spent

three nights in hospital after a row with a party colleague,

is also quitting the party. There are no hopes as far as I'm

concerned. I will be withdrawing my application to become leader of Ukip

will stop I can withdrawing myself from Ukip. You are resigning from

the party? I am resigning with immediate effect and I do not think

at this stage Ukip is gullible. That can make them achieve what they

have. -- is government will. I have to look after my health at this

time. Do you think the party can resurrect itself? Difficult to see

but it seems to be in turmoil. Steven Woolfe not only have we had

the latest tobacco, but when Diane James was elected leader, he had

tried to be part of that. -- the latest problems. But he missed the

deadline for and the sea, so we have gone from that fiasco to Diane James

being elected Tom acquitting 18 days later, -- being elected and quitting

18 days later, then the site, it is an incredible spiral Ukip seems to

be in, fighting between rival factions. It is difficult to know

what the future of Ukip will be. Brexit has been achieved, a big

objective, so it is finding what Ukip thinks its role will be after

Brexit. But these should be on a high, in large part responsible for

that successful Brexit vote? Yes, but I do think they are finished. It

was always the field that rather than being apolitical party they

were a pressure group with a charismatic leader. They were

incredibly well funded and because of that they were able to get into

places where other traditional parties were not able to get into

and sucked up a lot of ports and able to say they were bigger than

they had the mechanism to be. Now the chickens are coming home to

wrist, fighting with themselves, the public, fighting in private, no one

knows what is going on, Steven Woolfe withdrawing himself, even the

language used is borderline farcical. I cannot see where it Ukip

going next except scattered to the winds. And aside from the infighting

in the party, where does Ukip set on the political spectrum when Theresa

May is arguably stealing a lot of their clothes? It seems to be an

Steven Woolfe has said that part of his spat with Mike was he thought

about going to the Conservative Party, so it seems like that might

be a natural home, but some people might think Ukip still has a role in

Brexit negotiations, campaigning for a hard Brexit and also the case that

there will be... We will need to leave it there, we are right out of

time. Thank you very much. That's it for tonight.

Thanks for watching. I'm back again tomorrow

night, usual time. So do please join me then,

Goodbye.