Morning Commentary: Friday 21 August 2026
The Scottish Police Federation wants clearer powers to require the removal of face coverings used to hide identity. Inverclyde is trying to grow Greenock’s population through legal migration it does not control.
The Scottish Police Federation wants clearer powers to require the removal of face coverings used to hide identity. Inverclyde is trying to grow Greenock’s population through legal migration it does not control. Glasgow has approved an equal-pay scheme that cuts some wages. NHS Grampian has paused children’s surgery in Elgin. What that tests, and where we stand.
This morning's argument is in ordinary news: identification at football, a shrinking west-coast town, a city payroll, a district hospital, and two animal-disease controls in the south-west. None of those is a constitutional set-piece. All of them test whether a power exists, who holds it, and whether the money and staff are there.
Identification, not a general unmasking law
The Scottish Police Federation’s general secretary, David Kennedy, has used the HMICS annual report to argue that officers need clearer powers to require the removal of face coverings where they reasonably believe those coverings are being used to conceal identity in connection with crime, violence or serious disorder. He has tied that to live facial recognition. He has also said the discussion is not about legitimate religious, cultural, medical or occupational covering.
That is an accurate split. Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 already lets an inspector or above authorise, in a defined locality and for a limited time, a requirement to remove items worn wholly or mainly to conceal identity, if there is a reasonable belief that serious violence may occur. Scotland has no general street power to demand that anyone uncover. The SPA’s own recent events paper noted the high threshold and said an England-and-Wales-style expansion was not currently necessary.
Live facial recognition does not work on a covered face. Cameras do not replace officers. A general ban on face coverings would be a different law, with a different justification, and would need exemptions that survive a court. The analysis in The 28 is identification powers for people who cover up in order to commit crime — not a national dress code.
Policing is devolved. Statute can be amended at Holyrood. The constraint is drafting and public consent, not reserved competence.
Read it against:
The 28 — 3. Streets Safe Again. Independence Debate — Section 16: Identity, Democracy, Equality and Accountability.
Greenock cannot legislate a border
A BBC Scotland report this morning describes Inverclyde Council’s attempt to stop Greenock’s long population decline by attracting people who already have a legal right to live and work here — sponsored skilled workers, and people granted refugee status — and by encouraging those who arrive to stay. The council area’s population is about 78,000, down roughly 22,000 since 1981, and official projections still point to a further fall. Overseas arrivals have risen to about 750 a year since 2023, according to reported figures.
A council can market a town, ease housing, and staff schools and care. It cannot set visas, asylum intake, or enforcement. Those are reserved. Treating a local repopulation strategy as a national immigration policy confuses the two.
The standing position is the same split used throughout the Independence Debate. After independence, free movement of people with the rest of the UK would continue. There would be no hard border with England. International in-migration would be numbered, skilled where the labour market requires it, and tied to housing, school places, GP lists and enforcement. Until those powers exist, Item 11 and Item 25 remain red. Inverclyde’s problem — fewer people of working age, more funerals than baptisms, care vacancies — is real. The lever that decides how many people may enter the UK does not sit in Greenock Town Hall.
Read it against:
The 28 — 7. Scots Trained, Scots First; The 28 — 11. Scotland Runs Scotland; The 28 — 16. Rural Revival; The 28 — 20. Housing for Scots First. Independence Debate — Section 5: Borders, Immigration and Citizenship.
Glasgow’s equal-pay bill is now a payroll choice
On Thursday, Glasgow City Council approved a new pay and grading scheme for about 24,000 non-teaching staff. The council estimates 63 per cent would see an increase and about 11 per cent a reduction, with the steepest individual cut put at £11,500 a year. Pay protection for those who lose out would run for 12 months after implementation next year. Letters are due from 30–31 August. Unions protested. SNP and Green councillors voted for the scheme; Labour voted against. The council has already paid around £770 million on the historic equal-pay liability after the 2017 litigation.
This is local government using devolved employment and equalities duties inside a finite budget. It is not a Holyrood tax decision. The mechanism is job evaluation plus a Section 188 process if collective agreement fails. The constraint is the same one that sits under every Scottish council: the settlement, council tax, and the cost of putting right a scheme that discriminated. Most staff gain. Some lose. That is what “drawing a line” actually looks like.
Read it against:
The 28 — 2. Fairer, Simpler, Lower Taxes; The 28 — 27. Anti-Poverty Push; The 28 — 28. Transparency in Government.
Elgin: surgery paused because the rota could not guarantee safety
NHS Grampian has extended a pause on paediatric surgery at Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin to all planned procedures, including elective dental and ENT. Emergency paediatric surgery had already been paused in June, with defined exceptions. Healthcare Improvement Scotland inspected the hospital unannounced in April and later sought assurances on how many staff have advanced paediatric life support training. The board says it is reviewing rotas and renewing training, and expects to decide with HIS by the end of the year what children’s surgery can safely stay on site. Outpatients continue. Some children will travel to Aberdeen or Inverness.
This is not a slogan about a “free” NHS. It is access. The hospital is open. The service that requires a trained team in the building is not. Rural surgery is a workforce and volume problem. Pausing is the right immediate action if life-support cover is not there. The later test is whether the site can be restaffed, or whether Moray becomes a permanent outbound corridor for children’s operations.
Health is devolved. Scotland chooses the money and the training places. Time is not optional: a review to December is a winter of cancelled lists.
Read it against:
The 28 — 1. An NHS That Works – Free Forever; The 28 — 4. Lives Saved Faster; The 28 — 16. Rural Revival. Independence Debate — Section 11: Public Services Continuity.
Two disease controls in the same region
The Scottish Government has put a Temporary Control Zone around Dumfries and Galloway for bluetongue after further cases, including near Lockerbie, following a first Scottish case in a lamb at Creetown. Susceptible animals moving in and out of the zone require a licence. From 22 August, animals moved from Scotland into a restricted zone in the rest of the UK must return the same day. From 10 September, susceptible livestock coming into Scotland from a restricted zone must be vaccinated, with a same-day return exception.
Separately, the classical BSE case confirmed on 19 August on a Dumfries and Galloway farm remains under APHA investigation. Food Standards Scotland has said the animal did not enter the food chain.
Both are devolved operational animal-health systems working as designed: find, restrict, trace. They are not a change in the national food-safety regime. Farmers will feel the licences first. Export status is the second-order risk if either story is mishandled.
Read it against:
The 28 — 23. Food Security & Farming First; The 28 — 16. Rural Revival.
Also on the record
BBC Scotland staff have been told jobs will be cut as the corporation seeks UK-wide savings. Reports that the BBC Scotland television channel could be reviewed are not a formal closure notice. Broadcasting and the licence fee are reserved. Holyrood can complain. It cannot set the settlement.
John Swinney has been asked to defend official travel costs, including business-class flights associated with World Cup visits. The position is simple: publish the business case or stay at home.
Ferguson Marine’s planned reduction of about 70 posts from 283, as the yard waits on orders, reminds us that a public yard without a pipeline is a payroll, not a strategy.
A man has been charged after a cable-reel crash closed the A77 at Kilmarnock. That is a police matter.
Link list
- The 28 — 1. An NHS That Works – Free Forever
- The 28 — 2. Fairer, Simpler, Lower Taxes
- The 28 — 3. Streets Safe Again
- The 28 — 4. Lives Saved Faster
- The 28 — 7. Scots Trained, Scots First
- The 28 — 11. Scotland Runs Scotland
- The 28 — 16. Rural Revival
- The 28 — 20. Housing for Scots First
- The 28 — 23. Food Security & Farming First
- The 28 — 27. Anti-Poverty Push
- The 28 — 28. Transparency in Government
- Independence Debate — Section 5: Borders, Immigration and Citizenship
- Independence Debate — Section 11: Public Services Continuity
- Independence Debate — Section 16: Identity, Democracy, Equality and Accountability
