We shouldn't have to ask for Trump police costs help. Sadly we must

The Herald Scotland

13 hours ago

The Scottish Government has to be delighted that what is by any measure a personal trip by the man who just happens to be the 47th President of the United States has a meeting with Keir Starmer baked into the schedule. This gives rise to the ludicrous claim this golf trip is in fact a working visit – but it is that label which will allow for to-ing and fro-ing with the Treasury over which government foots the bill, and arguably helps avoid a financial headache for Shona Robison.
Policing in Scotland is fully devolved, and in the ordinary run of events you would expect the burden of policing costs to fall entirely on Holyrood. But whenever an event carries any form of UK badge, the expectation for the Treasury to put its hands in its pockets to pay for it is not entirely unreasonable. That basic premise, however, rarely runs seamlessly and is often a source of political tension and institutional headaches.
Despite the façade, the 2012 Olympics were by any stretch of casual observation a London-based Games. The tokenistic events in the other home nations – principally to avoid shelling out approximately half a billion pounds of Barnett consequentials to Holyrood, Stormont, and the Senedd – were shown to be just that the moment sudden and unforeseen costs were encountered.
Read more by Calum Steele
The failure of private security contractor G4S to provide the promised security for the football in Glasgow was catastrophic. A flagship event at the biggest sporting event in the world was in jeopardy. The reputation of the Games, and the nation as a whole, required some decisive leadership – which came in the shape of the then Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police, Sir Stephen House, who didn't hesitate to take over the security at enormous and unbudgeted cost to his force.
That invariably led to a political tug of war over who should meet those costs. Treasury was resolute that it would not be doing so, as in its view it had already provided additional funding for the Games to Scotland. The Scottish Government argued that as these were meant to be UK Games (despite the less-than-subtle Games logo and marketing), the additional costs should come from the Treasury, leaving only one loser – Strathclyde Police. Ultimately, only dogged perseverance by the force itself saw the costs of fixing G4S's failures being eventually reimbursed by G4S and the Home Office, delivering a moral and financial victory for Sir Stephen and the Scottish Government.
Whilst these kinds of technical spats are bread and butter for political geeks and policy wonks, they should be of much wider interest to us all. The nature of devolved politics will always throw up disputes of this kind, and when they do, they actually tell us so much about the way in which the critical infrastructure in the country is formed and functions; and crucially, just how fragile the trust upon which it is built can be.
Policing in the UK spans three distinct legal systems. Baked into the structure is a 'mutual aid' system – where any police force in the UK can call upon others for help. The UK's mutual aid system allows police forces to share the load in times of sudden demand or extreme emergency. It's a model found nowhere else in the world. Arguments can be made both ways over which makes most sense, but self-sufficiency signals a national confidence and competence in a way that the perceived pragmatism of sharing capacity doesn't.
The truth of it is £5m ought to be chicken-feed when looking at the costs of guaranteeing the safety and security of the President of the United States. Arguments over who pays, or the fact there is a question of anyone other than the Scottish Government picking up the costs, miss the wider point altogether – and that is that despite a police service of some 16,000 officers, our national police service has to call on mutual aid at all.
Stephen House agreed to take over the security of the 2012 Olympic football in Glasgow at enormous and unbudgeted cost to his force (Image: Danny Lawson)
There is no doubt the Police Scotland of 2025 is a much weaker beast than that of 2018 and is more reliant on mutual aid now than then. Some will argue that's what the system allows for and we should be proud to call on assistance from elsewhere. I don't buy that. Calling for help in times of extreme emergencies is one thing, but calling for help for what should be a fundamental capability of the police service of our nation is not something we should boast about.
The simple fact is Donald Trump is the first American President since Ronald Reagan to legitimately claim direct Scottish lineage. Whether he's the first or last of a Trump dynasty in the White House remains to be seen – but his ties to Scotland are indisputable. Any US President with clear links to Scotland should be acknowledged – strategically, if not personally – for the potential soft-power benefits of claiming the world's most powerful leader as a son of the nation are inescapable.
Whether we like it or not, Trump will almost certainly continue to visit his mother's homeland long after leaving office – and wherever he goes, the scale of security required to accommodate him will far exceed that of any predecessor. It ought not to be a controversial matter for any nation's police service to be able to say unequivocally that they could keep him safe, nor, for that matter, for any government to easily be able to pay for it. One thing is for sure – the 'working visit' label will cease to apply once he leaves office, leaving only one budget to pay for it – the Scottish one. If we can't manage now – how on earth will we manage then?
Calum Steele is a former General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, and former general secretary of the International Council of Police Representative Associations. He remains an advisor to both.