A ground-breaking initiative to foster stronger economic, cultural, and educational ties between Scotland and India is set to take flight (writes AIKYA NAIK).
The Direct Flight Advocacy Group, comprising high-profile representatives from major IT companies, tourism operators, educational institutions, and aviation authorities, is launching a campaign to establish direct flight routes between Scotland and India.
The official launch event, featuring the unveiling of a dedicated website and survey, took place on July 24 at the Consulate General of India in Edinburgh.
The current absence of direct flight routes between any Scottish city and India represents a significant missed opportunity for enhancing connectivity and collaboration. Establishing direct flights will provide convenience and unlock substantial benefits for both nations.
Event Highlights
The event was held at the Consulate General of India, Edinburgh, where distinguished guests and stakeholders gathered to discuss the importance of this initiative and the positive impact it promises.
The evening featured speeches from key advocates and stakeholders, including:
Consul General of Indiasaid: “The Consul General of India is proud to support this initiative. Direct flights between Scotland and India will significantly enhance our cultural and economic exchanges, bringing our communities closer together.
“We see immense potential for growth in tourism, trade, and educational collaboration with the establishment of these direct routes.”
Christopher Tibbett, Aviation Director at Glasgow Airport, said: “We are very keen for a flight to India.
“It is the highest-demand country without a flight to Scotland, and we are determined to make it happen.”
Gary Cox, Director for Aviation, Scottish Government, said: “India is a real priority market for us.
“We are working with airlines to incentivise them to come to Scotland. A new direct route can stimulate extra demand, and we are committed to securing a daily route.”
VisitScotland’s Denise Hill, said: “We’ve seen a huge growth in tourism post-COVID, particularly from high-spending international visitors.
“We are very keen to see direct flights from India, which would bring longer-staying and higher-spending visitors, further boosting our tourism industry.”
Lynsey Burns, Airline Relationship Manager at Edinburgh Airport, said: “The prospect of a direct flight route to India is so exciting and achievable.
“We have substantial data proving the demand, and we are committed to making this vision a reality.”
Confidential Insights
Confidential research by Glasgow & Edinburgh Airport suggests that a direct flight route presents a substantial opportunity for aviation growth.
Delhi, due to its strategic location, can serve as a key connecting hub for destinations like Australia, Singapore, and Thailand, saving significant fuel and operational costs.
Furthermore, there is a considerable freight potential, estimated at over £300 million per year, enhancing trade between Scotland and India.
Call for Support
The advocacy group is calling on all stakeholders, including airlines, government officials, business leaders, and the general public, to support this initiative.
The campaign website and survey aim to gather valuable insights and demonstrate the commercial viability of the route.
Next Steps
Following the launch in Edinburgh, the advocacy group plans to host a follow-up event in Glasgow in early September to present the survey results and further engage with stakeholders.
This transparent approach ensures that both cities receive equal opportunities and benefits from the initiative.
About the Direct Flight Advocacy Group
The Direct Flight Advocacy Group is a coalition of representatives from major IT companies, tourism operators, educational institutions, and aviation authorities, dedicated to establishing direct flight routes between Scotland and India.
The group aims to unlock significant economic, cultural, and educational benefits through enhanced connectivity.
Police are appealing for the public’s help to trace Wilma Cameron who has been reported missing from Armadale.
The vulnerable 79-year-old was seen in Armadale around 8.30am this morning – Sunday, 28 July, 2024.
Wilma is believed to have travelled to Edinburgh and may have been in the Waterloo Place area around 10.20am. She has connections to Aberdeen and may be trying to travel to there.
Wilma is described as 5 ft 5, of slim build with short, white hair. When last seen she was wearing a cream puffer jacket, white and grey checked trousers and carrying a green handbag.
Inspector Andy Meikle from Livingston Police Station said: “We are becoming increasingly concerned for Wilma’s welfare and it is important that we trace her.
“She has links to Aberdeen and may be using public transport to travel.
“We would urge anyone who thinks they may have seen her to please let us know.”
Anyone who has any information regarding Wilma’s whereabouts can contact Police Scotland on 101 quoting incident number PS-20240724-1268.
Glasgow joins Dundee and Aberdeen in £1 million pilot scheme
A licence application has been submitted to the UK Government Home Office for a drug-checking pilot to be established in Glasgow.
The Glasgow health and social care partnership service would be based at a hub on the same site as the UK’s first Safer Drug Consumption Facility which is scheduled to open later this year.
The Glasgow drug-checking service would allow dependent drug users to submit a drug sample which will then be tested to identify the substance. HSCP staff at the site will then be able to provide specific health and harm-reduction information directly to people who have come in.
It follows applications from organisations in Aberdeen and Dundee for similar facilities earlier this year. Scottish Government funding of £1 million has been committed to establish the three sites.
Speaking during a visit to the site of the Glasgow hub, Drugs and Alcohol Policy Minister Christina McKelvie said: “Glasgow’s licence application is a welcome milestone.
“Drug-checking facilities would enable us to respond faster to emerging drug trends – which is particularly important given the presence of highly dangerous, super-strong synthetic opioids like nitazenes in an increasingly toxic and unpredictable drug supply. These increase the risk of overdose, hospitalisation and death, and are being found in a range of substances.
“We’re taking a wide range of measures to reduce harm and save lives – including the opening of a Safe Drug Consumption Facility pilot in Glasgow, supported by £2.3 million in ringfenced funding.
“I was pleased to see the progress that has been made and I’m grateful to everyone involved for their hard work. This facility is not a silver bullet. But we know from evidence from more than 100 facilities worldwide that they work.”
City Convener for Workforce, Homelessness and Addiction Services Councillor Allan Casey said: “Glasgow’s plans to open Scotland’s first safer drug consumption facility are progressing well and the submission of a Home Office licence application to operate a drug-checking service is another step towards providing comprehensive harm-reduction measures at our Hunter Street site.
“Being able to test drug samples on site will give staff the opportunity to engage with service users about what they’re using and provide harm-reduction advice and support.
“Engagement with local businesses, residents and community groups regarding the opening of our safer drug consumption facility is still ongoing. We recently completed a successful recruitment campaign, supported by volunteers with lived experience, and staff will be coming into post in the coming weeks, where they will undertake induction and training plans.”
As we highlighted in last week’s blog, we recently saw the state opening of Parliament at Westminster which allowed the new UK Government to set out their legislative programme (write MAIRI SPOWAGE and HANNAH RANDOLPH of Fraser of Allander Institute).
Along with a huge amount of pomp, ceremony and grand tradition, this is the first formal expression we have had of how the Labour manifesto will be turned into government policy and action.
The King’s Speech is focussed on legislative changes, so other areas where policy changes are likely be taken forward without legislative changes (perhaps through public service reforms, or simply changes in spending, such as health) always feature less prominently.
However, there were plenty of bills to examine – 40 bills were presented by the speech on 17th July. This is the highest number of bills to be presented in a monarch’s speech for almost 20 years.
Which of these bills are relevant to Scotland?
The patchwork of devolution in the UK means that the extent to which these bills are relevant for Scotland is a complex picture. The chart below shows the spread, which demonstrates that in theory 22 of the bills are likely to impact upon legislation in Scotland.
Chart: Number of bills in the King’s Speech by territorial reach
Source: UKG
Digging into the detail of each of these bills shows that the impact on Scotland gets more complicated.
One of the UK wide bills is the National Wealth Fund, which will bring together some existing initiatives such as the UK Infrastructure Bank and the British Business Bank, as well as additional capitalisation of £7.3 billion over the course of the next parliament. As well as this additional public investment, the idea of bringing these different organisations together is to make the business support landscape simpler for businesses, to “create a single coherent offer for businesses and a compelling proposition for investors”.
Leaving aside the extent to which this level of extra investment will move the dial on investment overall, there is also a question whether this is going to actually simplify things for businesses in Scotland. Economic development is devolved, and we have a number of bodies that provide potential support, including the Scottish National Investment Bank and the three Enterprise Agencies.
A common complaint from businesses, particularly those with limited capacity, is the complex landscape for business support. Therefore it will be interesting to see the cross-governmental working (if any) on this to simplify things for businesses right across the UK.
Another key measure is on planning. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill proposed in the King’s speech “is expected to extend and apply to England and Wales. Some measures may also extend and apply to Scotland”. It is not clear from the explanatory notes to the King’s speech what this will actually mean for Scotland, although there is some mention of ensuring grid connections are available in a timely fashion (which would be a reserved issue in the energy infrastructure space) may well be the relevant point.
Again, the devil will be in the detail of the bill, and the extent of cross-governmental working, for us to understand how this could change things for businesses operating in Scotland.
The Crown Estates Bill does not apply to Scotland because it is devolved: but our understanding from the nots to the Bill that the provisions in the Bill for England, Wales and NI are essentially bringing in the same fiscal flexibilities that exist for the Crown Estate in Scotland.
The Hillsborough Law is the one which currently has an indeterminate territorial reach, and is one of the more vague bills included in the list of 40. This will “place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities” to “address the unacceptable defensive culture prevalent across too much of the public sector – highlighted by recent reports such as Bishop James Jones’s report into the experiences of the Hillsborough families and the recent Infected Blood Inquiry report”. This is fulfilling a manifesto commitment, but a concern could be that legislation to change culture may be ineffectual. This is in no way to belittle the catastrophic failures in the system that happened in these instances, just a question over whether this kind of law is the way to address it.
These are a few examples, but the detail of all the bills and crucially how they are implemented will be important to understand the actual impact on Scottish law, businesses and citizens.
Two child benefit limit causes first Labour rebellion
This week, we also saw the vote on the King’s speech – the first vote for the Labour Government, and, perhaps predictably given the size of their majority, the first rebellion from a few backbenchers.
The SNP laid a motion to amend the king’s speech to include the abolition of the two-child benefit limit. The amendment was voted down, but removing the two-child limit is now being widely debated particularly because seven Labour MPs voted for the amendment and have had the whip withdrawn. More broadly, it has drawn attention to what the new Labour government’s plans for an anti-poverty strategy might be.
The two-child limit applies to households with three or more children receiving Universal Credit or tax credits. Both give households additional amounts for the first and second child, but no further benefits or credits for the third or subsequent children. It does not impact on Child Benefit.
The two-child limit was introduced in 2017 and applies to any child born after 6 April 2017. As time goes on and a greater proportion of children fall into that category, more families are affected.
HMRC and DWP report that 440,000 households were affected as of April 2024, of which 26,000 are in Scotland.
Estimates from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that the two-child limit currently costs affected households £3,400 per year, per child on average. This is likely one driver for a widening gap in poverty rates for families with one or two children versus those with more.
The Scottish Government has introduced a new benefit, the Scottish Child Payment, as part of their efforts to reduce child poverty. To what extent does the Scottish Child Payment mitigate the effects of the two-child limit in Scotland?
The Scottish Child Payment (SCP) is a £26.70 per week, per child under 16 benefit available to households in receipt of qualifying benefits like Universal Credit. SCP does not restrict the number of children in a household who can receive the benefit, nor does it have a lower amount for second and subsequent children.
SCP is therefore likely to mitigate the effect of the two-child limit on households in Scotland to some extent. Households receive about £1,400 per year for each eligible child from SCP, which does partially offset the £3,400 they might be able to claim for third and subsequent children in the absence of the two-child limit.
Chart 2: Child poverty rate by number of children in the household, Scotland
Source: Scottish Government and Department for Work and Pensions Notes: Child poverty rates are averaged over three years of Family Resources Survey data. For the last three years, figures represent a two-year average excluding the 2020-21 data due to data collection issues associated with the Covid-19 pandemic.
The mitigation of SCP, plus other factors, may contribute to lower gaps between child poverty among children in households with 3+ children versus in households with fewer children (see chart).
The gap between poverty for children by family size has grown since about 2012-15 for the UK as a whole. Just over one in five (22%) of children in households with only one or two children were in poverty in 2020-23, compared to nearly one in two (44%) of children in households with more children.
In Scotland, however, there is slightly less of a gap, albeit one that has grown more in the last couple of years. 19% of children in households with 1-2 children live in poverty, compared to 38% of children in households with more children. Because some of the effects of the two-child limit are mitigated by SCP, removing the two-child limit might have less of an effect in Scotland than in the rest of the UK – but it would still have an impact.
The Scottish Government has estimated that about 10,000 children would be taken out of poverty in Scotland if the two-child limit were removed, many in households with 3+ children.
For context, that would reduce child poverty in Scotland by about 1pp. That’s on top of an estimated 60,000 kept out of poverty by the SCP in 2024-25.
What next for the two-child limit?
The Labour Leadership are sticking to the manifesto on which they were only recently elected: that they would like to remove the two-child limit in time, but that they do not think they are in a position to remove it just now due to the public finances.
The cost is estimated at about £3.4b per year in the long run, about 3% of the working-age benefit budget. So while fiscal responsibility is to be lauded, this would be a fairly minor policy change in fiscal terms in exchange for progress on child poverty at the UK level.
The cost of these increased benefits for households in Scotland would still fall on the UK Government rather than the Scottish Government, since Universal Credit and tax credits are both reserved.
Labour have also pointed out that removing the two-child limit is not a silver bullet, and that they want to take the time to develop a coherent anti-poverty strategy across different policy areas.
As usual, we hope that such a plan would be evidence-based. There may also be opportunities to learn from devolved policies like SCP that should be taken up by the new UK Government.
A 29-year-old man has been arrested and charged following and assault and robbery on a 74-year-old man at the junction of Dalkeith Road and Salisbury Road, Edinburgh on Wednesday, 3 July, 2024.
The man is due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on tomorrow (Monday, 29 July).
A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal.
Just three days short of its second anniversary, the Covid-19 Public Inquiry published the report from the Module One investigation into the resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom (writes TUC’s NATHAN OSWIN).
The report highlights the devastating consequences of austerity in the decade that preceded the pandemic and the risk of vulnerability in the UK population.
The Impact of austerity on public services
Inquiry Chair, Baroness Hallett, states plainly that, “In short, the UK entered the pandemic with its public services depleted, health improvement stalled, health inequalities increased, and health among the poorest people in a state of decline.” This blunt assessment underscores the critical condition of the nation’s public services as they faced the unprecedented challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The role of the TUC and evidence from frontline workers
As Core Participants in the Inquiry, the TUC played an integral role in the process, working with our unions to provide the evidence that ten years of under-investment and real terms funding cuts to public service in the run up to the Inquiry left key services struggling to cope.
“Public services, particularly health and social care, were running close to, if not beyond, capacity in normal times” the report states, a statement that doctors, nurses, porters and social care workers have been telling us all.
The Inquiry also heard that “there were severe staff shortages and that a significant amount of the hospital infrastructure was not fit for purpose. England’s social care sector faced similar issues. This combination of factors had a directly negative impact on infection control measures and on the ability of the NHS and the care sector to ‘surge up’ during a pandemic.”
A call to avoid past mistakes
The report is both a damning indictment and a call to never repeat the mistakes of that decade – a desperate reminder of the need to invest in our public services.
And while the report is not naive about the costs needed to make the UK more resilient ahead of the next pandemic – a matter of when not if – it reaches the conclusion that “the massive financial, economic and human cost of the Covid-19 pandemic is proof that, in the area of preparedness and resilience, money spent on systems for our protection will be vastly outweighed by the cost of not doing so”.
Addressing health inequalities
What’s more, the Inquiry is crystal clear as to the price we pay for inequality across our communities. It notes that at the outset of the pandemic, the UK had “substantial systematic health inequalities by socio-economic status, ethnicity, area-level deprivation, region, social excluded minority groups and inclusion health groups”.
And Baroness Hallett’s report correctly states that these inequalities weakened the ability of the UK to cope, stating that “resilience depends on having a resilient population. The existence and persistence of vulnerability in the population is a long-term risk to the UK.’
Recommendations for the future
The recommendations themselves speak of the need to engage with wider society for planning on how we handle a crisis and to take into account the “capacity and capabilities of the UK”.
No one knows the capacity and capabilities of our public services better than the staff that deliver them and the TUC and its affiliated unions stand ready to assist the government in this vital work.
Conclusion: Building a resilient future together
It is by working in partnership – with proper resources going into our public services – that we can truly learn the lessons this report sets out and secure the resilience and preparedness that the UK needs for a future full of challenges.
Plans to reveal which new hospitals, surgeries and treatment centres will be built in Scotland have been delayed.
In a letter to Holyrood’s finance committee, Cabinet secretary for Finance and Local Government Shona Robison explained: ‘To provide as much certainty as possible to parliament and wider stakeholders of our capital investment plans, I must wait until I have confirmed capital allocations from the new UK government”.
That confirmation is not expected until late Autumn – and, given the new Labour government’s warnings about a £20 bn. ‘black hole in the UK’s finances, it’s not expected to be good news.
Lothian Conservative MSP, Miles Briggssaid: “This further delay to finding out if SNP Ministers will reinstate the funding for a new Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion is extremely disappointing.
“We urgently need a new eye hospital to improve the delivery of ophthalmology across the South East of Scotland.
“The decision by SNP Ministers not to reverse funding for a new hospital has been a disastrous decision and will ultimately lead to additional costs for the delivery of a new hospital.
“I will continue to lead calls for the funding for a new eye hospital. What we desperately need is to see some leadership from SNP Ministers.”
“Poverty statistics that hide the real scale of increases risk policymakers missing what is truly happening to poverty.”
Many households remortgaging or taking out new mortgages since 2022 have experienced sharp falls in their disposable income as higher interest rates have pushed up housing costs, and by December 2023 this is set to have pushed 320,000 such people into poverty. But official data do not measure mortgage interest payments properly, so official poverty statistics will only capture about two-thirds of this effect (230,000 people).
These are the findings of a new IFS report, released on Thursday and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which examines recent trends in poverty and deprivation. Other key findings include:
Despite the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, the overall rate of absolute poverty was the same in 2022–23 as in 2019–20 (18%, or 12.0 million people), though it did rise slightly by 0.8 percentage points (520,000) between 2021–22 and 2022–23. But there was a significant increase in more direct measures of hardship. For example, the proportion of working-age adults who reported being unable to keep their home warm enough rose from 4% to 11% (1.8 million to 4.6 million) between 2019–20 and 2022–23, and the share who reported being behind on bills rose from 5% to 6% (2.1 million to 2.5 million).
Part of the difference is likely to relate to how the official statistics measure incomes and hence poverty. Higher energy and food prices mean that lower-income households and pensioners faced a higher inflation rate than average – but this is not captured by the official poverty statistics. Taking account of higher inflation for these households implies poverty rose by 210,000 more people than implied by official statistics for 2021–22 and 2022–23 (730,000 people rather than 520,000), including 80,000 pensioners.
In addition, the official statistics do not measure households’ mortgage interest payments directly, instead modelling them based on average interest rates. This matters when there is a growing spread of interest rates as some households come off their fixed rate: in 2022–23, mismeasurement of mortgage interest payments resulted in the number in poverty being understated by 70,000; as more fixed-term mortgages end, that number is set to rise to 150,000 (based on December 2023 interest rates).
There is evidence that mortgage rate rises have pushed some adults into financial hardship. Adults remortgaging in 2022 were 2 percentage points more likely to fall into arrears on bills than those with mortgages who had not remortgaged. This suggests that, once all households have remortgaged, the number of adults behind on bills could rise by 370,000.
Sam Ray-Chaudhuri, a Research Economist at IFS and an author of the report, said:‘Rising mortgage rates have played and are likely to continue to play an important role in many households’ living standards. But, perhaps surprisingly, they are not measured properly in the official income data.
“This has led to the headline statistics understating the number of people in poverty, something set to get worse in next year’s data. Poverty rises have also been understated due to the unequal impact of inflation.
“At a time when rates of deprivation and food insecurity have risen substantially, poverty statistics that hide the real scale of these increases risk policymakers missing what is truly happening to poverty.’
Peter Matejic, JRF Chief Analyst, said:‘This research shows the cost-of-living crisis wasn’t felt equally by everyone. Compared with before the COVID pandemic, many more people, especially those on a lower income, struggled to heat their homes or keep up with their bills.
‘One reason lower-income households went without essentials is because they faced a rate of inflation even higher than the headline numbers. High interest rates also saw many households forced into financial hardship after they remortgaged.
‘This report raises many questions about whether social security is adequate for the challenges looming over struggling households. The new government can’t wait for growth, after years of cuts, caps and freezes to social security have left families without the financial resilience and security they needed to cope with higher prices and costs.’
Commenting on the IFS report IFS on poverty, which shows that 320,000 people pushed into poverty because of mortgage interest rate rises, TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said: “This surge in poverty shows the awful impact on people’s lives of the Conservatives’ economic and policy failures.
“It’s a poverty crisis that has been created by poor growth and social security cuts. Interest rate hikes came on top of the longest period of pay stagnation for more than 200 years.
“Rapid delivery of the government’s plan to make work pay will ensure more better-paid, secure jobs and help reduce poverty among working families.”
Shoppers turned up their droves and travelled for miles to get their hands on the world-famous bons at the opening of Cinnabon’s first-ever Scottish site at The Centre, Livingston yesterday (26th July), with queues starting almost two hours before it opened.
The company, which started out it in Seattle in 1985, has branches in over 48 countries around the world, and now Scotland, at one of the country’s largest shopping centers, The Centre, Livingston which has over 150 shops including Flannels, Rituals and River Island.
Fans and those new to Cinnabon, travelled from all over the country to get their hands on the tasty treats, which come in a variety of flavours, including the original roll which is the Classic Cinnabon with Makara cinnamon and signature frosting, ChocoBon and Caramel PecanBon.
The first customers also received a special tote bag.
Patrick Robbertze, Centre Director at The Centre, Livingston, said: “The opening of the first-ever Cinnabon branch in Scotland was a huge success as people travelled from near and far and queued for up to two hours before it opened, with long queues continuing throughout the day, to get their favorite bons.
“The opening is a fantastic addition to our existing variety of great places to shop and eat at The Centre, Livingston which makes for a brilliant day out when visiting us.”
