Latest news with #LesleyRiddoch
The National
20-07-2025
- Business
- The National
'Vulnerability' left in UK constitution after UKIMA review
The Internal Market Act (UKIMA) faced fierce criticism from devolved administrations when it was introduced in 2020 to regulate trade within the UK following EU withdrawal. They argued it enabled Westminster to override devolved decision-making in areas such as public health and food standards in pursuit of a unified UK market. After winning power in 2024, the Labour Government announced it would be reviewing the legislation. The findings of the UKIMA review were published last Tuesday. The review introduced procedural changes – including a mechanism to fast-track exclusions from the act where the economic impact is less than £10 million per year – and pledged to prioritise the use of common frameworks, post-Brexit agreements intended to manage formerly EU-governed policy areas collaboratively. READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch: I was steered by BBC bosses on how to report. I ignored it However, the review's changes are not legally binding and could easily be reversed, Professor Thomas Horsley, a constitutional law expert at the University of Liverpool, said. 'All they've done is said, 'these legal powers that exist, we commit politically to exercise them in accordance with what we agree in the common frameworks',' Horsley said. 'But that is a political commitment, and we all know that intergovernmental commitments can be – even the strongest ones – can be disregarded by a particular recalcitrant government in London. 'So the constitutional vulnerability, if you want to put it like that, remains.' He also said the £10m threshold below which UKIMA exclusions would be fast-tracked was a 'low bar', noting that it could be met by the turnover of a single company. Following the publication of Labour's review, both the SNP Government in Edinburgh and the Welsh Government in Cardiff welcomed changes to the exclusions process – but called for UKIMA to be fully repealed. Welsh Deputy First Minister Huw Irranca-Davies (Image: Welsh Government) Huw Irranca-Davies, the Deputy First Minister of Wales, said: 'We particularly welcome the commitment to implement any exclusions agreed via common frameworks, which should improve the functioning of the UK internal market. The common frameworks operate on a clear set of principles which fully respect devolution and include dispute resolution mechanisms. 'However, it is our long-standing and consistent view that the act should be repealed and replaced with a system, underpinned by legislation, designed around the common frameworks.' Scottish Constitution Secretary Angus Robertson hit out in stronger terms, saying UKIMA 'introduces radical new uncertainty as to the effect of laws passed by the Scottish Parliament and effectively provides a veto to UK ministers'. 'Nothing set out in the UK Government's response to the review changes this position, which is completely unacceptable,' he went on. READ MORE: Kate Forbes calls for Internal Market Act to be scrapped 'The conclusion of the review falls well short of our stated position of repeal and replace UKIMA, and indeed short of the legislative change required to mitigate the most damaging aspects of the operation of UKIMA.' Horsley said he could understand the argument being made by the devolved governments, that the 'common frameworks can do it all' and UKIMA is unnecessary. 'It is precarious because if things don't get agreed through the common frameworks – or a future UK Government decides, well, these political commitments we made, we're changing our mind – the legal powers are still there,' he said. 'This review doesn't change the legal framework, it just says, wait a minute, we're going to park it in the background and we're going to try and work using more intergovernmental political mechanisms, the common frameworks.' However, Horsley said that although the Labour Government's review has resulted only in political pledges, it was 'definitely a move in the right direction and a move that speaks to the ambition of the UK Government to reset relations'. He went on: 'There are other parts of UKIMA which are just not discussed. [The devolved governments] would like to reopen discussions around the direct payments that can be made from London in devolved areas. So there are things that are not so narrowly related to intratrade that are still rubbing up wounds. 'But in terms of just narrowly looking at UKIMA and the market access principles, there are some positive things there and some clear commitments from the UK Government towards more consensual policy making … which is very different to obviously the more abrasive approach which preceded under previous governments.' READ MORE: John Swinney sets out 3-point plan for fresh independence push In late 2024, Horsley was one of four constitutional legal experts to co-author a report on UKIMA which concluded that reform of the legislation was 'essential to restore intergovernmental trust'. Asked if Labour's review had provided that essential reform, he said: 'What this review shows is that there is more work to be done, but it's around those common frameworks. 'It's now shifting the attention to making the common frameworks work. These are not off-the-shelf things that are super functioning and solve all the problems. 'So the work between the governments now is going to have to be making those common frameworks work.' Douglas Alexander is UK Trade Policy Minister (Image: UK Parliament) After the review was published, UK Trade Policy Minister Douglas Alexander acknowledged there were 'real concerns' about how the laws have operated, and pledged "improvements'. Alexander stressed the importance of having a 'well-functioning UK internal market' as part of the Government's 'ambition to improve economic growth for the benefit of businesses and people in all parts of our country'. He added: 'Latest figures show that trade between the four nations of the UK is valued at £129 billion and that it is particularly important to the economies of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.'
The National
18-07-2025
- Politics
- The National
Speakers announced for Edinburgh Gaza protest on Saturday
The protest on Saturday, organised by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) and the Edinburgh Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee (GGEC), was called in response to reports that the UK is continuing to send spy flights over Gaza and sharing information with Israel. Campaigners will assemble outside St Giles' Cathedral at Parliament Square at 1pm on Saturday. READ MORE: Legal complaint filed after armed police threaten woman for holding Palestine flag The march route will go down the Royal Mile to Queen Elizabeth House, which is the UK Government's headquarters in [[Edinburgh]]. Campaigners will then head along Market Street before crossing over Waverley Bridge onto Princes Street, then South St David Street, before going down George Street and ending outside Bute House, the First Minister's official residence. On Friday, the SPSC announced the full list of speakers for the protest. Those set to speak include journalist and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch, former SNP MP Tommy Sheppard, Alba Party leader Kenny MacAskill and lawyer Aamer Anwar. Full list of speakers at Saturday's pro-Palestine Edinburgh protest: Doha Abu Amer, who has family in Gaza Aamer Anwar, lawyer Colin Brown, FBU Scotland Billy Hendry, Scottish ex-Royal Marine Lesley Riddoch, broadcaster and journalist Kenny MacAskill, Alba Party leader Tommy Sheppard, former SNP MP The protest was initially set to assemble at the foot of the Mound. Organisers changed the start point to the top of the Mound, however they said "safety concerns had been raised", leading them to change the meeting point to Parliament Square. Ahead of the protest on Saturday, a spokesperson for the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: 'Israel is planning the end game – the complete ethnic cleansing of the whole of Palestine. 'Israel is escalating its massacres in Gaza and attacks across the West Bank. Israel is designating Rafah as a concentration zone under the sick label of 'humanitarian corridor'. READ MORE: Police Scotland issue terror charge for man with 'Palestine Action poster in window' 'Children are starving to death in Gaza due to blocked aid and targeted food distribution points. Civilians attempting to access food are being ambushed and killed in huge numbers. 'The West Bank is seeing a surge in settler violence, with Palestinian homes and lives under daily threat." The spokesperson added: 'The RAF has flown over Gaza at least 518 times during the genocide, providing intelligence to the Israeli military below. 'Despite the scale of the atrocity, UK political and institutional leaders remain largely silent.'
Times
13-07-2025
- Business
- Times
Swinney has blown our chances of a payoff for all those turbines
Lesley Riddoch is fed up. Granted, this is not an unusual condition for the independence-supporting columnist and promoter of all things Nordic. But it is not hard to understand why she's upset that there was scarcely a murmur of discontent from the Scottish government last week after Ed Miliband scrapped zonal energy pricing. 'Where's the outcry from the SNP or Greens?' she asked, plaintively. What was so wrong about Scots getting cheaper bills? How could John Swinney have missed this opportunity to demand that Scots get direct benefit from Scotland's wind? Surely this was a slam dunk for a nationalist party which always claims that Scots were robbed of the last energy bonanza in the North Sea. Zonal pricing is the idea, promoted by Greg Jackson of Octopus Energy and backed by Jonathan Brearley of the regulator Ofgem, that electricity prices in Scotland should reflect its contribution to addressing climate change. All those wind farms in the North Sea and the towering turbines now gracing Scotland's hills are supposed to deliver cheap-as-chips energy. But Scottish bills have continued to rise, plunging around a million Scots into fuel poverty. • Rejection of postcode electricity pricing pleases energy bosses Yet Scotland could enjoy 'the cheapest energy costs in Europe', according to Jackson, if the UK government introduced zonal pricing. The cost of electricity, he says, should reflect the cost of producing and transporting it. In the past, location didn't matter much because power for the electricity grid was generated by coal, gas and nuclear plants which were dispersed across the country. But with renewable energy generated in the North Sea, location very much does matter. It is expensive to transport the electricity produced by Scottish wind farms to the south of England, where most of it is used. Huge infrastructure projects are necessary to drag the reluctant electrons five hundred miles through cables and interconnections. A lot of energy is lost on the way through heat and leakage. Allowing energy costs to fall in areas where it is generated should be more energy-efficient. More importantly, it might encourage energy-intensive industries to come to Scotland. Those footloose data centres and artificial intelligence companies, with their insatiable demand for energy, could locate in Scotland to take advantage of lower energy costs. Given the chronic overconcentration of economic activity in the south of England, this is not such a daft idea. At any rate, you'd think that this is something that would appeal to Swinney, the first minister, who keeps saying he wants economic growth brought back to Scotland. Scotland was one of the centres of the Industrial Revolution largely because of an abundance of coal and other raw materials. That's why the Clyde could build a fifth of world shipping before the First World War and mills such as Ravenscraig could later turn out miles of sheet metal for the motor industry. The days of coal are over, of course, and Westminster has passed a death sentence on the Scottish oil and gas industry. So surely Scotland would have a case for demanding that the new industries of the digital age should be located where energy is abundant. Of course, zonal pricing might have had awkward trade-offs. If Scots paid less for their energy, English consumers would presumably have to pay more. Yet it would not be a massive imposition for the 65 million consumers who don't live in Scotland to finance a couple of hundred quid off the bills of the five million who do. The main reason Swinney has been reluctant to campaign for zonal pricing is that the big energy companies, most notably SSE and Scottish Power, are firmly against it. These largely foreign-owned behemoths have a material interest in the status quo. They are compensated generously by a panoply of schemes such as contracts for difference, which effectively guarantee that the profits from renewable energy are never less than the profits they make from gas. At least a quarter of domestic energy bills go toward subsidies for renewables. They claim that they would not be able to finance new wind farms if differential pricing undermined profitability. However, the energy companies also benefit directly from the mismatch between where energy is generated and where it is used. Last year they earned nearly £2.7 billion in constraint payments, largely for turning their windmills off when they generated too much energy for the grid to accommodate. A quarter of Scotland's potential was switched off last year. Well, there seems an obvious solution to that. Even more obvious is surely the propaganda benefit to a nationalist government of a situation where Scottish wind energy was actually being wasted. Moreover, communities are already being compensated for proximity to wind farms, albeit in a very limited way. RES, a renewables development company, has been setting up local energy discount schemes (LEDs) across the country since 2012. Properties near Glenchamber Wind Farm in Dumfries and Galloway can apply for a £200 discount on electricity bills. So zonal pricing is actually happening — just not at scale. And even as Miliband killed the idea of zonal pricing, he promised zonal compensation for communities facing wind farm development. There will have to be, he said, 'direct community benefits'. Perhaps it is not feasible to disaggregate the National Grid to create zonal pricing. There is a democratic argument that energy costs should be the same across the UK. But given that so much of the cost of renewables is covered by subsidies, surely this could be re-engineered to allow Scottish homes and businesses to benefit from all that wind. UK energy policy is anyway riddled with anomalies, waste and unfairness. Miliband is using punitive taxation to accelerate the collapse of Scotland's oil and gas industry. The promise of a bonanza of green jobs has been as false as Labour's promise to cut energy bills by £300. If zonal pricing isn't feasible, then what would be a sensible way of compensating Scots for the disruption to their environment and their selfless contribution to saving the planet? And why isn't the Scottish government arguing for it? For once, there is good reason here to play the Scottish card. Instead of meekly acquiescing in the diktat of the renewable energy cartel, the Scottish government should be holding Miliband's feet to the fire and making sure the dash for renewables doesn't leave Scotland on the sidelines. As Riddoch says: 'Why the heck not?'
The National
10-07-2025
- Politics
- The National
Coul Links inquiry delayed as SNP change policy on protected beach
The proposals to build an 18-hole course at Coul Links – a dune system near Embo in Sutherland – were called in by SNP ministers last year after the Highland Council's approval sparked anger from major conservation groups including RSPB Scotland, National Trust for Scotland, and Scottish Wildlife Trust. Coul Links is a triple-protected site, forming part of the Loch Fleet Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), the Dornoch Firth and Loch Fleet Special Protection Area (SPA), and the Dornoch Firth and Loch Fleet Ramsar site – meaning it is protected under the 1971 international Convention on Wetlands. READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch: The SNP must take up zonal pricing fight – why aren't they? On Wednesday, the Scottish Government published an updated policy on Ramsar sites – effective immediately – which steps up protections, including by mandating a Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) for any developments affecting Ramsar sites. Government agency NatureScot says that a HRA must show 'beyond reasonable scientific doubt' that a project 'will not adversely affect the integrity' of a Ramsar site, or it must not be allowed to go ahead. The policy change came six months after the public enquiry essentially came to an end, with evidence submissions closed and Scottish Government planning reporters assessing the case since January. NatureScot maps showing the protected area north of Embo, where C4C hope to develop, and the Ramsar site in relation to Inverness (Image: NatureScot) The Planning and Environmental Appeals Division's (DPEA) final recommendations were due to be delivered to ministers in April, and then in May. However, submissions for evidence have now been reopened instead, to allow for consideration of the policy change. This process will take at least four weeks. There is currently no HRA listed among the 1126 documents relating to the Coul Links case on the DPEA website. The Scottish Government did not respond to whether the development could go ahead without one. American entrepreneur Mike Keiser is set to step in and lead the development if permission is secured by the Communities for Coul group (C4C). The group was created after initial plans, spearheaded by American entrepreneur Todd Warnock, were blocked by Scottish ministers in February 2020, who ruled that the proposals would have 'significant' impacts on nature. READ MORE: Rhoda Meek: What the Highlands and Islands can learn from Bognor Regis and Blackpool C4C have since publicly led on revised plans they claim will be net-positive for the Ramsar site, and contribute between 270-400 full time jobs and £8-12 million per year to the economy. A spokesperson said they believed the Ramsar site policy change would "not negatively impact on the outcome of our planning application". 'As local residents, everyone involved in Communities for Coul knows Coul Links intimately and cares passionately about its environment and wellbeing. That is why sustainable and properly funded measures to enhance the habitat at the site have always been central to our application," C4C said. The Scottish Greens said that the policy change to better protect Ramsar sites means that the SNP must block the golf development. Highlands MSP Ariane Burgess told The National: 'I am delighted to hear that the Scottish Government are taking steps to protect nature here in Scotland. 'It is now up to ministers to use their powers to keep our precious and unique habitats that provide homes for rare threatened species thriving and free for the people to enjoy, rather than handing them over to become private playgrounds for the wealthy. READ MORE: New photos show flooding on planned site of Coul Links golf course 'Coul Links sand dunes are very rare habitats, with a variety of vegetation and species dependent on them for their survival. This includes endangered birds on the Red List such as curlews and warblers.' She added: 'East Sutherland is already well served by high-quality golf courses. Promises of investment and jobs must be balanced with the urgent need to protect nature, including these precious habitats already at risk of loss through climate change. "Coul Links is an area enjoyed by wildlife and by people. Its status as a Ramsar site must be heeded by the Scottish Government, and marked safe from these destructive plans for yet another private golf course."
The Herald Scotland
09-07-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
North East Scotland incinerator shut after operator's threat
However, a growing number of faults at the site, which opened less than two years ago, has left Belgian operator Indaver on the brink of pulling out. Sources told trade journal EWB that the facility contained more than 1800 'snags' when it was handed over for operational use last year. By contrast, the typical number of faults expected in this sort of project is around 350. The incinerator is located south of Aberdeen Harbour in East Tullos. A spokesperson for the waste management firm confirmed the company had considered pulling out of the multi million pound project. They said: 'Indaver can confirm that, due to ongoing issues the company is experiencing in relation to its operations at the NESS waste-to-energy facility in Aberdeen, Scotland, the company is reviewing its future involvement in the project.' The shutdown has left refuse crews scrambling to find alternative sites for waste removal, leading to bin collection delays across the North East of Scotland. Aberdeen City councillor Deena Tissera said she had written to the local authority's chief executive seeking clarity on the future of the site, which is also used to produce electricity and heat homes in the local area. She posted to X: 'I must express the growing frustration among elected members and the public at the lack of clear communication and accountability around this significant infrastructure failure. 'Indaver, a key partner in the NESS consortium, is considering withdrawing from the project due to serious issues with the build quality. Read more: Does the planning process respect local opinion? Just ask the people of Torry Hundreds in Aberdeen's Torry to be 'rehomed as soon as possible' over Raac fears Lesley Riddoch: In Torry the 'Just Transition' to renewable energy is far from just Ms Tissera added: 'Reports confirm that the plant was handed over with an unacceptable number of unresolved defects - around 1800 snags - compared to the typical threshold of 350. This level of failure points to systemic weaknesses in the oversight and delivery of this publicly funded project.' An Aberdeen City Council spokesperson said: 'Due to an issue between EFW Ness Ltd and its operating sub-contractor, the Ness Energy from Waste Facility is currently closed. Waste is being diverted to an alternative disposal facility. Residents should continue to put their bins out as normal.'
