The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday April 23 2025 #PMQs
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's daily video bulletin. My name is Dale Miller. I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our Westminster correspondent Alexander Brown. Alex, another big day in UK politics. We're speaking ahead of Prime Minister's questions today. But firstly, I want to talk about the front page of today's Scotsman.
00:21And we let on the SNP being told to stop wasting time amid confirmation they would review gender policies. Now, this comes on the back of the Supreme Court verdict last week, which is going to have significant ramifications for public policy surrounding same-sex spaces and other areas at NHS boards and other public bodies across the country.
00:46The Social Justice Secretary, Shirley Ann Somerville, stood up yesterday and said while they would be reviewing their policy guidance, she couldn't give a timeline on when that would take place.
00:58We're expecting we won't have anything from the Scottish Government until after the EHRC completes its own guidance, which is due, I think, in the first part of the summer.
01:10So it is a waiting game at a time when a lot of people are talking about what the policy should be or shouldn't be on the back of the verdict last week.
01:20Alex, I'm sort of going to touch on that with you a bit shortly, but immediately Rachel Reeves is jetted out to the US.
01:28We know this comes fresh from all the tariffs, fewer or what's she hoping to achieve while she's out there?
01:34She's hoping to speak to her European counterparts and American counterparts and just people in the financial industries, really, to work out ways to mitigate the impact of the tariffs.
01:46We had the International Monetary Fund publish their report, their forecasts for the world.
01:53I think the global outlook was quite bleak, a 0.5% reduction in growth expectations.
01:59But the UK actually was quite strong. The UK held up in its growth.
02:03Well, the growth was reduced to what it was expected to be, but the growth was still higher than most of the other countries in Europe.
02:09And it's interesting, the framing of that.
02:11Obviously, the SNP was saying this shows the UK government has got a terrible approach, whereas the UK government would say, look, we're doing better than other countries.
02:20This shows our approach is working and we're doing all we can.
02:22And she's going to be talking about ways to address that and just basically trying to really get that over the line, this US trade deal that has still failed to materialise and which we know is so important to any efforts to mitigate what could be quite damaging impact from tariffs.
02:37And Alex, talking about the economy, there were some figures out this morning about government borrowing and it may not surprise those listening, but it was up for the period leading into March.
02:49What does that mean and how much was that?
02:52I think it was up by about 15 billion, which is a terrible blow to the government that's prided itself on fiscal responsibility and a chancellor whose whole thing has been about having strict fiscal rules and living within her means of governing within the means of the government.
03:07I think it's a real, real problem.
03:09Economists say what this means is to mitigate this, there's going to have to be tax rises and there's going to have to be public service cuts.
03:16Stop me thinking you've heard this one before.
03:18This whole thing is that fiscal rules leave us in a position where it's not really been working.
03:23And then this isn't necessarily the fault of Rachel Reeves, obviously global events, both the war in Ukraine, the impact of tariffs and all the uncertainty over that issues around energy supply.
03:32So I think it's really important to stress that this borrowing increase is not the fault of the Labour government.
03:36It might be spun as such, but on this instance, it is not.
03:40But how they respond to it is going to be really important, because so far, the government has already cut welfare.
03:46It's already made changes to winter fuel.
03:48It's already refused to.
03:49And I think privately admitted it's not going to lift the two child benefit gap.
03:53But that is only so much that Labour voters and the public can swallow.
03:57And if they continue to, if they have to go past that, I think you're going to see a rise in reform further, as maybe some of the working class voters who went to Labour think, actually, it's not working.
04:08I'm not getting anything out of this.
04:09And even if those other guys haven't got a plan, it's something different.
04:13And I think it's a really worrying time for Labour and for Rachel Reeves' future as well, actually.
04:18It does seem like the government's currently in an economic doom loop that they need to find a way out of to get the public back on board.
04:28Obviously, a big week for Rachel Reeves, as you've said.
04:30It's also been another big week for Sir Keir Starmer.
04:35I mentioned we're recording this ahead of PMQs.
04:38But he made his first public comments in the wake of the Supreme Court judgment yesterday, and some are labelling it as a U-turn.
04:46Was it a U-turn, Alex?
04:48It was a U-turn, but I also think it kind of reflects the political reality.
04:52If there's one thing we know about Starmerism, one of the criticisms, actually, is that he does not have a particular ideology.
04:58He's not binded by any real association with a particular movement of a particular cause.
05:03And what's happened is the Prime Minister had previously expressed his support for trans people.
05:08He'd said that a trans woman is a woman, and he had shown sympathy and, indeed, allyship to the trans community.
05:15And in wake of the Supreme Court verdict, in what is, I don't want to say got to journalism, but was always going to be the problem,
05:22the former head of the CPS has basically been asked, do you agree with the law?
05:27And he has said, yes, a woman is an adult human female.
05:31He has followed the line of the legal verdict.
05:34And, you know, his critics, those or maybe those on the gender ideology side of it might go, well, actually, he doesn't mean it.
05:43He's a hypocrite.
05:44And I think you're definitely going to hear Kemi Bader not talk about this today.
05:47We've already heard Tories talk about it and post about it.
05:50It's going to be a big attack line for them.
05:51But I think for Labour, they probably think, well, the issue is settled.
05:55We've already changed the guidance on puberty blockers.
05:58And this is the latest example, a Supreme Court verdict of a battle that has been lost.
06:03So he has just accepted that.
06:05But I still think it's damaging.
06:07And I think it's interesting.
06:08I've been speaking to MPs and many of MPs in the LGBT caucus of the Labour Party are quite critical of what the government is doing now on trans people.
06:17And we have this issue, this story over the weekend where it emerged.
06:21I think Chris Bryan and a few others have criticized Supreme Court verdict.
06:25And Chris Murray, Scottish Labour MP, I think there's one of those, suggesting we have a meeting to discuss how to address it.
06:30That was then leaked, suggesting that even inside the LGBT group of Labour MPs, there is division on this issue.
06:37So it is a U-turn, and we're going to hear it weaponised.
06:41But I'm not sure how damaging it is if the Labour Party as a whole just says the issue is closed.
06:45We may agree or disagree on this, Alex, but I did think that Kemi Badenoch's response to the UK ministerial statement in the Commons yesterday around this issue was probably almost the strongest or the best moment since she's been Tory leader.
07:01We know we've written and spoken about that she's not had a great start in the role.
07:05But if she can't score into an open goal on this issue, you would worry if you were a Conservative supporter.
07:13I will be interested to see just how hard she goes on the issue at P&Qs today.
07:18And criticism this morning around Keir Snama being a manager rather than a leader, which has been interesting rhetoric.
07:26So it is over to the Labour government and their leaders over coming days.
07:32What's your view? I mean, so if we take the trans issue as a whole and we ignore the whether Kemi Badenoch...
07:39I mean, sure, it's a strong moment for Kemi Badenoch. We can debate the merits of her argument, but it was a stronger moment for her in country narrative.
07:45But in the manager leader criticism, she's done that a lot, or a lawyer, not a leader of the prime minister.
07:51And I do think even if you come at this from, say, a left wing perspective, if you look at the prime minister on many issues, he has not led, he has met people where they are.
08:03So, you know, if he believed that trans women were women, if he believed that trans people deserved allyship and support and he disagreed with, you know, for Women's Scotland, he could have made that case.
08:16Right. He is in a position where he can say something controversial, like we need to cut welfare, which he did, and hope to bring people with him.
08:23But on this issue, he has basically followed with whatever he thinks is popular at the time or the right thing to do at the time.
08:31So, we can, regardless of the merits of either side, on the issue of, you know, single-sex bases and trans women, he has not led the issue, he has followed.
08:44And I think that is an area of real weakness for him.
08:49And, yeah, I'd expect Kemi Badenoch to, at last, find a chink in the Labour leader's armour.
08:54You can read all the latest and our assessment of what's come out of the PMQ exchanges later this afternoon at scotsman.com.
09:04Please follow us on all social media channels for the very latest, including ongoing developments around the Pope ahead of his funeral this Saturday.
09:12And for a comprehensive wrap, go out and buy a copy of the Scotsman tomorrow morning, which will include details of the biggest transformation for Glasgow Airport in 11 years with new investment from its current owners.
09:27You can get that story in tomorrow's paper.
09:29Alex, thanks to you.
09:31Thanks to everyone else for joining us.