16/11/2011 Politics Scotland

Welcome to Politics Scotland. Coming up on the programme, there

is a rise in Scottish unemployment from the summer but it is still

lower than the rest of the UK. We will analyse the figures.

The SNP Government has set out their hopes for the regeneration

strategy amid opposition claims it has been crippled by massive budget

cuts. And here at Westminster, MPs may be

having a short holiday but it is those worries about the state of

the economy that are foremost in their thought.

But first, the number of Scots out of work has risen since the summer

but unemployment is still lower than the rest of the UK average.

Those are two of the main headlines to emerge from the latest

unemployment figures which came out this morning. For more on this, we

are joined by at our Business and the comic editor Douglas Fraser and

our political commentator, Alf Young. Good afternoon. To you,

Douglas. What is the detail behind these unemployment statistics?

bring up to speed with what the Office for National Statistics is

say, not a happy figure for Scottish politics but it could be

worse. One way of looking at unemployment, at the number of

people looking for work over three months, and a new key -- an

increase of 5,000 people in Scotland during that period. Some

of whom found work but that was the total and that was 215,000 people

looking for work from July until September. Another way of looking

at it is the number of people on jobseeker's allowance or

unemployment benefit and that was down by 900 in Scotland. To the

numbers for the UK, we are looking at a lot worse than these. So how

do Scotland compared to the rest of the UK? On the main count, those

seeking work over the period, Scotland has got an 8% unemployment

rate, the rest of the UK 8.3%. Scotland is in a better position.

If you look at the path of the downturn, Scotland started in a

better place, got to a worse place with unemployment but it is better

now than it has been for around three months. You have got another

figure to show us, a fairly negative figure and the retail

front. This is one area where Scotland is doing worse than the

parallel figures, from the British Retail Consortium, these figures

come from the Scottish Retail Consortium. Some shops losing

business to online sales. Down 0.1%. That seems a small figure but with

inflation at around 5%, that means people are taking a lot less home

and in October, the retailers had hoped to see an early spend, people

spreading out Christmas spending. That being absolutely essential for

profits for retailers. What political reaction has there been

in Scotland to these figures? unemployment figures in particular

have been focused on by the Labour Party, saying more needs to be done

in this particularly. The figures on youth unemployment for Scotland

are hard to extrapolate reliably because of the way they go about

this survey. It is roughly the same level as the UK and there has been

a big increase in the most recent figures, through one million

through the hall of the UK. It is a big area of worry. -- the whole of

the UK. Labour says more needs to be done for apprenticeships for

instance. Alf Young, let's pick up on that point. It is quite a worry

for the Scottish Government as they try to tackle unemployment when

they see youth unemployment rising like that. Yes, a problem for

government in London and Edinburgh because as Douglas said, we are

over one million in the UK as a whole for youth unemployment. In

Scotland, around 84,000 which is roughly a population share. The

problem is you are looking now, with all the other indicators, in

terms of where the growth is coming from, the Bank of England

downgrading forecasts over the next couple of years, if these jobs are

not coming through, you are looking at eight West generation. That is

what people are worried about. I saw some young people on television

last night been quite downbeat about the effort they put in and

the inability to find anything that is a reasonable job. Another bit of

that story is the number of them who can only find part-time work

which is fine in better times if people want it but if they want a

real job and they can only find a part-time job, you have got

problems with morale, paying off all the costs of living on your own

and so on. It is a huge problem, I think. And all politicians across

the spectrum here in Scotland and the UK as a whole are facing the

kind of problem we faced 25-30 years ago when there was a similar

situation, fighting to put young people into jobs because they are

coming out having paid for their Education and they have not got any

way to go with a productive wage. That is a huge tragedy. It is worth

pointing out the SNP says it is on board with the apprenticeship more

so than the previous government. is true that neither government is

making excuses, they are looking at the real implications for the

people affected. They are saying this is a real concern, not a blip.

We have also got the eurozone crisis and all the hopes for

export-led recoveries in manufacturing, for instance, that

has been dampened. It is a continuing argument between

Westminster and Scotland about primary and secondary plans. Yes,

and the idea from the SNP is more needs to be put into the economy in

terms of spend on infrastructure, helping the construction sector,

getting finance to small businesses and there needs to be more security

and that is why they are trying to ensure it there are no compulsory

redundancies in the public sector. At least the private sector has

been shedding jobs and they are not picking up the shed jobs in the

public sector. There is a lot of pressure over the next two weeks on

the fuel duty campaign that was very prominent yesterday in the

House of Commons. Pressure on George Osborne, he has got the

Autumn Statement coming up to try to relax spending a bit. He has

sent a signal to the international bond markets that Britain is tough

and it will be austere times, you do not need to worry about getting

paid back by the British Government. But clearly panic across a lot of

the eurozone. But it there is no growth, than his figures will be

thrown out of kilter. We will find out later in the month. Numerous

Wednesday's we have seemed quite positive with figures for Scottish

unemployment compared to the rest of the UK. In Scotland now catching

up with the rest of the UK in terms of more negative figures? So to me

last week, the Fraser forecast last week on unemployment suggested that

the Scottish rate would go as high as 8.9% by next year. And state

there for some time. We are going up that way, not as high as some

areas. In some areas like the north-east of England, you are

already looking at unemployment rate of 11% and above, so we are

certainly not there but the basic problem is that nobody quite knows

whether they are talking about a primary, secondary or tertiary

plans. Unless you get growth back into the economy, it is difficult

to say. The idea was to hold on to people, but that gets harder to do

the longer this goes on. You are therefore into a situation where

the Scottish figures, which were helped by forwarding capital

expenditure and so on, it might begin to look in terms in future of

the UK picture a bit more like that. Not much difference exists between

them but it may grow. Thank you. The Scottish Government are setting

out their regeneration strategy at Holyrood this afternoon and Labour

say the SNP are putting regeneration at risk claiming there

are a massive budget cuts. Let's go straight to the chamber and hear

what Alex Neil has to say. The Government's plans for

delivering this partnership with stakeholders. Since 2007, this

government has invested significant amounts of money in regeneration

and they will talk more about some of this in a moment. Alongside

partners and communities themselves, we have achieved notable success.

efforts have not been enough. Too many of Scotland's people still

live in communities suffering from the effects of deprivation, high

unemployment and disadvantage. Way too many people are not in work and

have low educational attainment -- where too many people. People still

die far younger than their fellow Scots. The regeneration strategy

will third reinvigorate effect to change this. But there are no Seoul

bullets but we will re-energised the regeneration policy -- no

silver bullets. The priority that evidence tells us which is vital to

success. These priorities up a focus on tackling deprivation in

areas by reforming how mainstream resources are used and working more

effectively. Two, a stronger focus on community-led regeneration as a

way of delivering change people want to see and three, a commitment

to ensuring the right type of funding and other support art in

place at national and local levels to support Scotland's communities

to flourish. I will talk more on these later. Let me turn to

investments so far. The Scottish Government has invested record

levels of funding to improve the physical and economic fabric of our

cities, towns and villages. In the face of unprecedented Westminster

cut, we have continued to provide support to those committees who

need it most. We developed a �50 million fund in partnership with

the European Investment Bank and we have invested over �90 million in

Scotland's other regeneration companies since 2007 which has

already resulted in over 1,300 new jobs being secured. A further �25

million of investment is planned in 2012-13 with a recognition of the

key role in securing an economic legacy for the 2014 Commonwealth

Games. We have supported 89 town centres with �60 million of funding

through our town centre regeneration fund. We have invested

over �40 million to tackle vacant and derelict land in some of our

most deprived communities. We have made a commitment to establish four

enterprise areas in Scotland to support economic growth. We have

brought forward taxing and finance pilot projects in partnership with

the Scottish Futures Trust as a way of unlocking investment in local

areas. And we have invested �700,000 in the last three years in

the development Trust Association of Scotland to help communities

under their own assets. In addition, our investment in skills

development, employability, housing Transport, renewables and other

infrastructure project all help ensure that deterred park -- this

disadvantaged communities can access many resources. But we still

have challenges to face. Earlier this year, I published a discussion

paper which kick-started the debate about the future of regeneration in

the current economic climate. Over 70 written responses were received

and a wide range of stakeholders engaged to a series of events. A

number of key themes emerged. As part of these discussions. These

were, one, a near of a clear vision for regeneration policy, two,

clarification of the Rolls that different organisations have been

delivering regeneration, three, support for a co-ordinated approach

to tackling area-based deprivation. Five, the importance of community-

led regeneration. Six, the need for continued funding. Finally, support

for town centres as a central part of community life. I anticipate

that these things will feature as part of today's debate. Be assured

they have shaped the development of the strategy and are at the heart

of this Government's approach to future regeneration. I spoke

earlier about the three key priority areas that will form the

strategy. I will now speak about each of these in turn. Firstly, a

renewed approach to tackling area- based disadvantage. Respondents to

the regeneration discussion paper recognised that addressing the

deeply ingrained economic, physical and social issues faced by some of

Scotland's communities requires a sustained and Co ordinated approach

across the public sector and with our partners. I recognise and

support the good work that has already been taken forward at local

level and a key aspect of the regeneration strategy will be to

build on this localised approach. This work will include working with

public sector partners to raise the profile of efforts across the

country to tackle area-based disadvantage and to promote and

encourage best practice in a culture change in the public sector

to join up mainstream resources and services to tackle area-based

disadvantage. It will also involve working with local authorities to

identify barriers to delivery and opportunities for strengthening

skills and capacity. We will lead the way to develop better

partnerships working with the public and private sectors and

improving collaboration between Strong communities are vital to the

success of Scotland. The regeneration strategy will place

support for regeneration at the very heart of this approach. It

will recognise that the changes required to make all communities

sustainable will only be achieved in the long run through a bottom up,

not a top-down approach. Through the regeneration strategy, we are

committed to supporting community led regeneration in order to growth

the numbers and the strength of locally controlled enterprising

community organisations to act as anchors for regeneration, to

support locally-based organisations to take on ownership of a viable

assets and to help people to organise and respond to the

challenges in areas where capacity is currently low. Community led

regeneration is about local people identifying for themselves the

issues and opportunities in their areas, deciding what to do about

them and being responsible for delivering the action that will

make a difference. The we are starting from a strong position in

Scotland. There is already an impressive range of activity taking

place across urban and rural communities, led by organisations

like development trusts and community-based housing

associations. The strategy will build on this strength and will

build on it through a range of new and existing support, both from the

Scottish government and party organisations including the big

lottery in Scotland. We are the early stages of developing

proposals for the community empowerment and renew it Bill

through a wide-ranging dialogue. We are exploring how legislation can

help communities to own certain public sector assets, have their

voices heard in local decisions and tackle vacant and derelict property

in their communities. We expect to consult on proposals and next

spring. I totally agree on the need for community-based work and for it

to be a bottom-up approach to this, but when you have regeneration

projects which do not have a community in which to begin that

regeneration, do you not feel that the Scottish government have got to

take a greater say in that? There was a decision in 2008 to downgrade

one community projects two-way regional priorities. As the member

will know, the Scottish government has given priority to that

committee and it is the subject of one of our tough pilot projects are.

We are determined to work together with everyone involved to make it

successful. Let's pick up on some of those

points with Alf Young. You have got an interest to declare because you

worried share of one of the regeneration companies. How

important is this regeneration strategy for the Scottish

government? We are still to see the detail of this review of overall

regeneration strategy that he was talking about a moment ago. From

where I stand on it, we are part of this story but only part of it

because there are a number of the urban regeneration companies in in

areas which have historically had significant problems. People have

moved away and the usual kind of problems that are associated with

those areas. That does not cover anything like the whole of Scotland

and, at a different level, there are those smaller Community

Development Trust that are springing up all over Scotland.

There are many of them. I think the problem that government has against

the backdrop of falling finances and money to fund these projects,

they are having to make quite difficult choices and we are taking

pretty heavy hits. We took a big hit back in January. We are taking

an even bigger hit in next year's funding. Labour say it is down from

�9 million to �2.5 million. It is of that order. We are taking that

hit but, beyond next year, into 20th April 13, we are getting

nothing in terms of core grant funding. -- April 2013. The

difficulty about doing the kind of physical regeneration we are doing

like taking derelict waterfront land and bringing new life into it

is that you have got a plan of a more than a financial year. We have

got a plan of a more than one financial year and to do that you

need to have committed finance going forward. And in these

difficult times, it is almost easier to use short-term measures

rather than long-term measures. short-term measures tend to be

sticking plasters that cover-up a problem for a short time. You have

got to try and turn around communities that have been in post-

industrial decline. You have got to do things for the longer term and

that is the tricky bit the Government is having difficulty

doing because it is having to fund other things. Thank you very much.

Back to our top storey and unemployment in Scotland rose by

5,000 in the three months to the end of September. The jobless rate

now stands at 8%, slightly lower than their UK average of 8.3 %.

Across the UK, youth unemployment has topped one million, a record

high. I am joined by the Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Minister,

Fergus Ewing. He is in the garden lobby at Holyrood. Unemployment is

up in Scotland. Who is to blame, Westminster or the Scottish

government? I don't think a blame game is a productive look.

Unemployment is up and we are concerned about that. Politicians

are south of the border are concerned about that you. We are

outperforming the UK. We have slightly lower unemployment, more

employment and more economic inactivity. But we are all

concerned about this. Many of the things we are doing in the Scottish

government are designed to promote long-term jobs and business growth

as Alf Young was talking about. This morning, I had the pleasure of

attending an announcement by Scotland's leading IT company where

they are recruiting 100 more staff. Yesterday we heard the announcement

from an us on and we have attracted, over the past couple of years, a

huge array of investment in Scotland for the long-term of high-

quality jobs. Therefore, we are working hard for a sustainable

economic development with a considerable measure of success in

these tough times. We have had John Sweeney saying his figures are much

better than the rest of the UK but now it seems Scotland is actually

catching up. He was quite rightly proud to boast about the

unemployment figures in Scotland. Do you take responsibility for the

rising number of unemployed in Scotland? We as a government are

responsible to do everything we can. In terms of job creation, most

people accept that what we really need to do is to assist the private

sector in creating a long-term job opportunities. That is what we have

been doing in Scotland with companies like Mitsubishi, BP. I

could go on all afternoon with the success stories of business and we

support them with our growth strategy to provide them the

appropriate level of government support in terms of working to make

sure that the skills shortages in many areas, particularly

engineering in the oil and gas sector, so essential for our future.

At the lower end of the market, there is massive concern about

employment in the 16-19 bracket. The NUS was saying today, look at

the huge cuts in the college budgets. How can you have that

training for young people for them to go on and find work? We have a

programme to provide opportunities to all of them so we have two

excellent schemes. Youth employment is 5% higher in Scotland than south

of the border but my dad used to say, 50 % of the people don't

understand percentages. What happens more than -- matters more

than statistics is human beings getting the chance, especially

young people, and one young unemployed young person is too many.

We are responsible together with our partners in the private sector

and universities and colleges to make sure that young people get the

opportunities they'd need and deserve a. We are achieving a

considerable degree of success, even in these recessionary times.

just want to turn to one other issue that is attracting a huge

amount of public interest today and that is the Rail 2014 consultation

which suggests passengers pay more. Is this a plan to float some

controversial ideas so that you can eventually perhaps produce the �750

million subsidy Scottish rail receive from the Government?

Machiavelli was a character who wrote a book but he's not running

the Scottish government. We don't operate by a series of conspiracy

theories. This document is a consultation document. It contains

suggestions and ideas, no more than that. They do not have Scottish

government backing. The purpose of a consultation document is to

stimulate a debate and I think we have already succeeded in that. I

would like to reassure rail passengers throughout Scotland, we

intended to improve our rail service, not to see it progress.

Thank you very much. We will have more on that story

surely put as thousands more Scots are hit by unemployment, who does

have the right answers? We will be hearing from a UK government

minister at Westminster. Animal charities a warning about growing

crisis due to an influx of abandoned Staffordshire bull

terriers. They are now taking up as much as 80 % of the spaces at

animal charity kennels. Holyrood's petitions committee is asking the

Scottish government to raise - respond to issues raised in the

Staffordshire bull terriers have acquired a reputation as aggressive

dogs and are known to be kept for protection by criminals. Leslie

Connolly helps abandoned savage able terriers through a

rehabilitation programme to help them find a new home. Some of them

have come from a really abusive background. They have been kicked

and hit with chains. Some of the animals have been drugged. It is

actually very normal, just getting a dog to walk properly and to pay

attention to what you are saying, because they are so used to not

doing anything or waiting to get hurt. Some of them are cowering or

ducking. She is helping at this kennels where a Staffordshire bull

terriers take up 80 % of the spaces. The charity's vice-chairman is

petitioning the Scottish Parliament for tough action on irresponsible

breeding. It is not be responsible breeders who have caused this

problem, it is people who watch breeding dogs to fund their habit,

are not licensed and will not conform to any of the laws

regarding breeding and abandoning dogs. The problem is nationwide. At

this very homing centre in Glasgow, staff are turning away around 25 a

Staffordshire bull terriers every week. They are being treated almost

as disposable items. We are also very concerned to see the amount of

a Staffordshire bull terriers being bred because it outstrips the

number of homes willing to take care of them. This woman spent 30

years grooming dogs but her business have to close for several

months after she and her dog were attacked by a Staffordshire bull

terrier. I had two broken fingers. I thought I was going to lose the

top of one of my fingers. I had 10 stitches in my other hand. Local

authorities are reporting increasing number of complaints

like this one which require investigation under the control of

Dogs Act. Since April, in West Lothian alone, they have received

100 complaints and 20 dog control orders have been issued. There is a

culture now of people who are breeding the stock to be vicious.

Some people are frightened, I am frightened for my own dog. Some of

my customers who have their dogs attacked and there is never

anything done about it. When it does go to Cork, they put the dog

down. It is not a dog. The law says that a licence is required to breed

We can deal with the cruelty case people. But you have to produce

five litters a year for breeding which introduces big money. This

type of breeding has slipped through the net. Animal welfare

charities say the challenge now lies in we home in these dogs and

convincing people like Martin that these are good, safe animals and

deserve a home. To get a dog snarling and baring their teeth is

worrying. I was able to entice them with treats and after a couple of

nights, it was not a issues. number of Staffies being abandoned

is reaching crisis point. It is calling on the Scottish Government

to take urgent action. If not, it says many could end up being put to

sleep simply because they have no Let's make another connection with

our story on trains and the consultation looking at the future

shape of how Scotland's railways are run. 2014 is when the current

ScotRail contract comes to an end. There and various ideas that a new

operator could consider things like changing fares. Opposition parties

branded this a third-class shambles. We are joined by Labour's transport

spokesman, at Holyrood. Thank you for joining us. You probably heard

our report saying Machiavelli is not running the Scottish Government

but to him this was a way of reducing the �700 million subsidy.

What do you think is happening, do you think there should be a

reduction of the subsidy? I suppose he is right that Machiavelli is not,

this is not a clever prose or at all. This seems designed to drive

passengers off the railways at the very time when growing the economy

and reducing carbon emissions are policy objectives mean we should

try to get more people onto the train and travel-to-work and take

their other journeys by that means. It is not clever at all. What it is

is a recipe which will result in more expensive trains, slower

trains, more overcrowd in and it will reduce the level of service

that Scottish passengers have come to enjoy. There is a specific point

about the North of Scotland as well because even when the Tories

privatise the railways 20 years ago, they guaranteed East Coast main

line trains would continue to run to Aberdeen and Inverness, that

guarantee was maintained by the Labour government and has been

maintained up until now and for the very first time, the SNP are

proposing to end the guarantee and stop those trains from connecting

Aberdeen with the London or Inverness with any part of England.

That seems to be going completely against the interests of Scottish

travellers and against the idea that we should encourage people to

take the train. It is just a consultation, after all, these are

not proposals and surely there are some sensible ones such as

rationalising the number of stations in Glasgow. Many people

will look kindly on the alcohol ban as well. In any consultation you

expect to see lots of good ideas and what we have is a raft of

really bad ideas. The was will simply drive people off the trains.

-- these Wilson plays. -- these will simply drive people off the

trains. What they are proposing here is reducing standards across

the board which can only reduce in passengers thinking twice before

they go for the train. We have seen passenger numbers on railways go up

steadily since devolution and I think what we are looking at now is

something that will fit the trend in reverse. They subsidy for

ScotRail is �700 million, your colleague Ken Macintosh running for

the Labour leadership suggested that ScotRail demutualised to save

taxpayers millions of pounds. What do you think of that suggestion?

is a lot better suggestion than the woman had before from the SNP. I

think there are many ways that would be an improvement -- than the

one we had before. These proposals will go in the wrong direction,

they are making the wrong choice at every turn. If you want to improve

punctuality, the answer is not to make the trains slower which is

what has been proposed. It you want to reduce overcrowding, it is not

the idea to make the trains so expensive. This consultation has

come from SNP ministers, they have the words of wisdom at the front of

the consultation and they will have cleared this for publication. They

cannot hide from what this is now on welcome to many people. Thank

you for joining us. Let's pick up on several of those

issues with our commentator for the afternoon, Alf Young. What do you

think is happening with this consultation? We are hearing from

Fergus Ewing that some ideas are being put out to the public and

some of the more controversial points, what are these people up

to? It appears that there are two irreconcilable forces here. The

amount of subsidy that has to go in to get it operating to take on the

franchise and run it and the reality that as petrol prices rise

and people change their habit, more people are using the train. I am a

good example, I use the train much more than I used to. And you find

things that are good about it, some very comfortable services now that

I use and there are others, such as the Edinburgh-Glasgow service that

is so busy at some times, it is difficult to get a seat. Some big

issues there about the overcrowding and those kinds of things. It is

also the case on InterCity services to the south from Scotland that it

is a lot more expensive to go to London by train and it is to fly

and if we want to people out of the air on the short haul things, there

has to be a better pricing system. I would have thought these were the

kind of metrics but when you get down to things about the number of

stations and in a sense, the commuter has not got a view on this

kind of things. And there a lot of stations where people wonder why

they got built there. It was meant to bring the wide as

representation of parties possible but apparently it has not, the

electoral Reform Society is warning that Scotland's election system is

failing to meet the aspirations of devolution by concentrating power

around two parties, Labour and SNP. We are joined by the director of

the electoral Reform Society in Scotland. Mr Sullivan, thanks for

joining me. What is the purpose of York new report? It sounds quite

unusual for me that when people in Scotland have voted with this

majority SNP Government, it sounds quite strange that you are almost

criticising the system that has brought this majority government

when in fact, the SNP almost broke the system and did what Labour did

not want them to do. The first thing to say is our modern

electoral system and Parliament makes Westminster look like a

tribal council. The truth is that just because it is good, it doesn't

been we cannot make it better. The concentration of power is worrying

where a bit it happens. It tends to concentrate in itself and we have

happen. The initial vision of the Parliament was to represent a wide

range of views from across Scotland and there was a point where we saw

that in 2003 but it has now fallen away with the two big parties vying

for power. That is a concern. We as the electoral Reform Society wants

to be the voters' representative and to charge his concentration of

power. You use the word "power" and you say it lies with the SNP and

Labour but you could say that it lies purely with the SNP in terms

of the committee's they control, Presiding Officers and the SNP

members. Does Labour have power in that term, Labour may be were all-

powerful in previous Parliaments, do you think this idea comes up to

that with the use of the word power? In the last Government we

saw a minority government which no opposition parties were able to

challenge. Before that, we saw coalition partners holding each

other to account, not just a solid block within one party. We are

concerned that as the SNP have an overall majority, not a majority of

votes, we must be concerned about that. Labour has some power in the

power to challenge and I guess the media have the power to challenge

and question on behalf of the people but there is in our view and

over concentration of power particularly when you think we have

got a majority of 44% of the vote. Those other voices, for example the

Greens, two seats... Less than 2% representation on 4.5% of the vote

and their voices are not being heard. That is a concern for us. We

have all got to check concentrations of power and make

sure it is balanced. Alex Salmond may have the best interests of this

country at heart but on the other hand, power has a tendency to take

people in difficult directions. Looking at what the SNP are seeing,

it is deeply ironic that they favour STV, a single transferable

vote, which is what your society prefer. But other people have said

this was designed by Labour, it was the people of Scotland who voted as

in and you're proposing a different system. Is this not trying to move

the goalposts when the people have spoken? Nobody takes away from the

SNP what was an incredible victory for them and the fact that this was

one of the biggest swings in European political history. But the

truth is they have a majority of representation, not of votes. How

much right they have to exercise an all powerful mandate as you say,

when nobody has checks and balances on it, is questionable. Whether

that system was set up by Labour to keep SNP out again is a debatable

point. It was some ways that people in the Labour Party were worried

about a Labour majority in that Parliament... What happens and what

happened in labour and local government, what happens wearer

power over concentrate, what happened in Westminster and I am

sure that the SNP would want to be critical of that, is that power

concentrated is quite dangerous. thank you for joining us.

Westminster is in recess today and there was no Prime Minister's

Questions but there are still plenty to discuss. Our Westminster

Correspondent is standing by for us. Andrew, but key very much.

Westminster Abbey is in full flow, the bells are peeling behind me --

Andrew, thank you very much. That is to celebrate the 400th

anniversary of the King James Bible. We will deal with matters a bit

more current, the state of the economy. Today, unemployment

figures came at which showed the highest for 17 years. More than

1,000,016-24-year-olds now on the unemployment register -- more than

one million 16-24-year-olds. Three MPs joined me you are not back in

their as constituencies in Scotland. David Mundell, to repeat some of

those figures, unemployment up in Scotland, more than one million

youngsters unemployed. These are pretty dreadful figures. They are

certainly concerning figures and the issue of youth unemployment is

a really serious problem. Youth unemployment rose under the last

Labour government and it is still a big issue to date. In Scotland, the

Scotland Office have held a series of events around Scotland to look

at why we have such a problem with youth unemployment. One of the

issues is that there is a bias against young people are

essentially in the workforce, people are not keen to take young

people on. We have got to combat that along with the other help the

Government is trying to give young people to get them into work for.

Are we starting to get where we see headlines since, "the Lost

Generation?" I am not that pessimistic. We have got to support

people into work. But we have got to change attitudes, taking on

young people are not risks. They have got potentially skills to

contribute to businesses and we have to seek a change in attitudes

if we will see a turnaround in youth unemployment as well as the

skills we are trying to equip young people to have to be effective in

What can be SNP due to reduce these figures? The Scottish government

already has a programme for 16-19- year-old and unemployed will be

offered training or education if they are not in a job. Part of that

is the 25,000 apprenticeships a year. The interesting thing in

terms of their youth unemployment figures, and they are far too high,

is that a third of them in Scotland are also in full-time education.

That is not to say the Scottish government is doing everything

right but the sort of things we can be doing to give young people the

skills they need are absolutely vital. Training and apprenticeships

all very well but if at the end of those schemes there are not the

jobs anyway, is it not just massaging the figures? No, because

if we don't give away youngsters the skills they need, we are

letting everybody down. The key thing is to put as much pressure on

the UK government as we possibly can to make sure there is real

measures to grow and stimulate the economy so we don't have another

lost generation. What would Labour do to get over these problems?

would not have at this complacency that we have just heard from the UK

and Scottish government. It is OK holding roadshows and round table

events and talking about lost generations and doing as much as

you possibly can to make people equipped for work but people are

equipped for work and are not able to get it. The plan being promoted

by Labour is that we make sure we invest in people getting back to

work and giving young people are the opportunities they desperately

need. 100,016-19-year-old out of work in Scotland is a disaster.

if the economy is not creating these jobs, it is worthless, isn't

it? The private sector is not picking up the public sector

contraction in Scotland at the moment and that is really

concerning. The Scottish government have got used everything in their

power to do something about it and I am not sure they are. Before

Westminster went into its many recess last night, there was a

debate on fuel duties. From the Government's point of view, a lot

of York backbenchers are sending you a pretty strong message, do not

go ahead with those fuel duty rises. I very much welcomed the debate

because in a large rural constituency like my own, fuel duty

is one of the biggest issues that constituents raised. I think he was

very good that he was debated yesterday and I think a strong

message has been sent to the Chancellor and we will wait to see

how he responds. For it looks as though there will be some good news.

The regional derogation for the island's will go ahead probably

next year. Is it enough? It is great news for the islands but it

is not enough. We need action to stabilise fuel across the entire

economy. We have been moving amendments to finance bills on this

since 2005. Action must be taken to have a permanent stabiliser in

place. We cannot have continually spiking costs that run into the one

pun 40 a later, that is utterly crippling for families and the

economy. I would expect for you to call for these duties to be reduced

and for there to be no further increases, but if you are in

government, you have got to find the money from somewhere. Every

penny not put on duty on fuel costs half a million pounds. It has got

to go somewhere else. The increase in VAT in January last year put 3p

automatically on a litre of fuel. We are saying that VAT has got to

be reduced in order to take the pressure off family budgets. That

would give families �450 extra per year in their pockets which would

help them out on all costs. We are calling on that to happen now in

order to take the pressure off. The debate yesterday, I believe there

were 130,000 signatures on the petition that went to Westminster,

but the motion didn't really say anything, et let the Government off

the hook. We need some hard action. Thank you very much for joining me

this afternoon. The new welfare reform bill was

criticised by various charities giving evidence at Holyrood's

health committee yesterday. The UK government was to simplify the

benefits systems and that has implications for the Scottish

government. We had a recent forecasting from the Institute of

Fiscal Studies suggesting that across the UK, by the end of the

decade, the overall impact of the tax and benefit changes that are

being made would be to push 800,000 more children into poverty across

the UK by 2020. If that trend is mirrored in Scotland, which it is

likely to be LSE put some substantial mitigating policies in

place, we are talking about 100,000 more children living in poverty in

Scotland by the end of the decade, wiping out all the progress that

has been made since the late 1990s. Children's charities have

particular concerns that these changes will have an adverse effect

and they will want the UK government to slowdown. We can all

agree that the benefits system should be made simpler, that work

should always pay, that the Child Support Agency needs to be reformed

or replace, but this bill is going through at such speed and often

with such little attention to the Scottish situation that it is

likely to cause major unintended consequences. The children are

receiving a double whammy. Their family income is being reduced,

public services that support them both by Darroch provision and local

authorities but also through the charitable and voluntary sector are

being restricted, and, consequently, the consequences for children are

likely, in the short-term, medium- term and long-term are likely to be

bad. We would like to see the Scottish Parliament analysed in a

sophisticated way what the cumulative and consequential impact

of this legislation is likely to be on children and to do what it can

to mitigate the worst impacts of that at. After hearing a raft of

evidence, there were calls for a dedicated scrutiny of the proposals

at Holyrood. The effects of these damaging reforms goes beyond this

memorandum that we are considering and will reverberate across

Scottish Society for years. I would like all of your opinions on

whether we need to set up a committee of this Parliament for

ongoing scrutiny of the impact of UK benefit reforms. Although this

is UK legislation, Holyrood will need to pass a legislative consent

memorandum, allowing these changes to apply to Scotland. Members have

already said they're not keen to pursue this on the nod. This view

is shared by the voluntary sector. 63 organisations came to that round

Table two weeks ago in this very room and that expressed to me 63

third sector organisations expressing concerns to you and we

ran out of time because so many concerns were being raised. With

the bill as it stands, I don't see how it would appropriate to let it

through. Our view is very much that we support the Parliament's

position but was taken at the debate in Parliament on the 5th. As

David said, as the bill currently stands, we think that view is right,

that Parliament is minded not to support it go. And the report from

the health committee on those welfare reforms will be published

at the end of the month. Let's pick up on one or two issues

raised during the course of the programme for a final time in the

company of our political, data for the afternoon, Alf Young. We are

just coming up to Christmas, the big shopping came -- campaigns are

getting under way, how worried should retailers be? With the

squeeze on living standards, people across the social range are being

much more careful about what they spend money on and that is going to

be important because retail consumption is such a big chunk of

general economic activity in our post-industrial society. It is a

big problem. In terms of proportionately looking at economic

activity, is it interesting looking at what people lower down the

economic scale spend money on? think it is widely thought that,

come Christmas, people with less money are very generous to their

kids and like to spend a lot of money and have that festive period

where they can enjoy things. Of course, if they don't have the

money to spend, they are prey to all sorts of dubious people who

will lend them money at astronomical rates of interest. I

was involved in something the other day about people who effectively

are excluded from the mainstream financial system who are prone to

those really high rate loans that you can get in shops and town high

streets all over Scotland. You end up paying huge amounts of interest

just to pay your way back out of it. That is going to be the downside of

being generous at Christmas if you can't really afford it. You can

find yourself caught out in the new year with this new debt. Do you

think we could see a number of big shops going under in the new year?

I was wandering about that because I was in Brighton on the weekend

and I went through a shopping mall and the only be space was habitat

which was one of the great casualties. Arguably, they have not

been that many be casualties but, the other day, I think, it sold for

�2 to someone else. Clearly, there are strings there. We're not seeing

the big names going but look at any small town, any shopping area and

you will see that small avoids have gone up. Shops are standing empty

and cannot find a new tenant. Any property person will tell you that

Lloyd's have pretty much doubled in the last couple of years as a

percentage of space on those high streets. There is a big problem and

it is such a court to our economic growth that it is a challenge.

Looking at those retail worries, we have been talking a lot about the

job worries. How does this role into the general economic picture?

We have not had so much this week about the crisis in the eurozone.

How are things are looking? We have now got the Government of

intellectuals and administrators running Italy, we have got a new

prime minister increase, we have still got the German saying to

David Cannon St he cannot snipe from the sidelines but he must put

money into the stability fund, -- David Cameron and that he cannot.

Alf Young, thank you for your company on the programme this

afternoon. That is all we have got time for today. We are back next