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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now staying with the migration crisis, the Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said last week that Scotland stands ready to offer sanctuary to refugees.  She said Scotland should accept round about a thousand refugees as a starting point and today announced a fund of a million pounds to support their arrival and Nicola Sturgeon joins me now from Glasgow.  A very good morning to you, First Minister.  We just heard from the Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, that she says her family, if it was approached, would be prepared if necessary to house some of these refugees when they come.  Would you echo that, Nicola Sturgeon, would you be prepared to personally house some refugees?

NICOLA STURGEON:  Yes I would and I have actually been overwhelmed myself over the past few days with messages from people across Scotland saying that they personally would be happy to give a home temporarily or for a longer period of time to somebody fleeing Syria so yes, I would be absolutely happy  to do that as part of a bigger wider more organised approach.  I chaired a summit of aid agencies and humanitarian organisations and local government representatives on Friday, I’ve established a task force to look at how we prepare a very detailed and practical way for the possibility of welcoming a number of refugees in the weeks and months ahead and I think it’s very important that we assess very seriously the capacity and capability within our local councils and look at how we also coordinate expressions of a desire to help from ordinary members of the public.

DM: So will you be getting in touch with your local council?  How many do you think you could fit in?  

NICOLA STURGEON: Well look, I’ve said very clearly I would be happy as thousands of others across Scotland I’m sure would be happy to play a part in this. I’m not going to get into some kind of gimmicky conversation here, this is a serious issue and it has to be done on a properly co-ordinated basis and that’s why as First Minister I chaired the summit on Friday and now have established an operational task force.  Now that task force is going to be chaired by the Minister for External Affairs in my government and we’ll be working very closely with local authorities to look at the capacity within local authorities, to look at how we provide not just housing support but other services that are required from health services to language support and also how we co-ordinate the desire of the public to play a part in this.  So I think it’s appropriate that we all indicate our willingness to be part of this but we make sure it’s done in a co-ordinated way and that’s why I’ve also indicated over the weekend that we’ve made available an initial fund of a million pounds to help with that preparatory work.  

DM: But surely it’s not gimmickry when Sir Bob Geldof says it, he’s the one that started the ball rolling in the UK about taking people into his housing but you’ll be away that David Simmons of the Local Government Authority Association saying if you are prepared to take people like this, what about all the homeless people sleeping on the streets for instance of Glasgow?   

NICOLA STURGEON: Well this is not either/or and I reject absolutely that this is an either/or approach.  In Scotland, as I’m sure is the case across the rest of the UK, we have homelessness legislation, we have very serious and significant and co-ordinated work ongoing to tackle homelessness on our own streets.  The Scottish government has an anti-poverty strategy, we’re working very hard to mitigate the impact of UK government welfare cuts and also to make sure that we have an appropriate and a co-ordinated approach to lifting people out of poverty. That is important and that is absolutely crucial and the Scottish government absolutely takes our responsibility very seriously but that is not a situation that means that we should not also as part of a, not just a co-ordinated approach within Scotland and within the UK, but as part of a wider co-ordinated approach across Europe, we have to take our share of the responsibility for dealing with the refugee crisis.  The point I’ve been making in the last few days is this one, no one country can deal with the refugee crisis on its own but if Europe and all the members of the European Union come together and deal with this in a co-ordinated way with every country playing its part, then just maybe there is the possibility of putting forward a response, a humanitarian response that is commensurate to the scale of the crisis that we’re facing.  

DM: So would you put a figure, the starting point is 1000 refugees round about you think for Scotland but you’ll be aware that the Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness, has said that Northern Ireland could take around 2000 and there is a much smaller population in Northern Ireland than Scotland.  What do you think an upper limit would be for Scotland?   

NICOLA STURGEON: Well what I’ve said, let me make two points on this, what I’ve said is we have to be prepared to do the practical planning work for this and what I’ve said is as a starting point, not as a cap or a limit but as a starting point, we should immediately start doing the work to prepare ourselves for taking a minimum of 1000 refugees.  Now the second point I would make of course is that unless the UK government changes and there are now signs that it is changing its position on it being prepared to accept significant numbers of refugees, then this is to some extent an academic discussion for Scotland because we don’t control the borders of the UK.  So what I hope to hear over the next couple of days from David Cameron is much more flesh on the bones of what he said on Friday, which was a welcome change of approach.  I hope that we hear a meaningful number from David Cameron, I’ve heard indications today that he may be looking at ten, fifteen thousand and then Scotland would be prepared to take whatever is a proportionate share of that for Scotland.  So I am not putting an upper limit on it, clearly there are practical implications of this and that’s why I thought it was so important as well as saying in principle that we want to welcome refugees, that we start now doing the practical work to put effectively our money where our mouth is but clearly we also want to hear from the UK government what they think is appropriate so that we can plan on the basis of that as well.

DM: And presumably you agree, I mean everyone agrees that it’s better to deal with the issue of war and civil war at source, but do you agree with the way the government seems to be going when they talk about dealing with it at source and the indications that there may be another vote on British military action within Syria.  Now if that was against so-called Islamic State, is that something the SNP could support?

NICOLA STURGEON: Well I have scepticism about the efficacy of air strikes but I am willing to listen to the case that the UK government puts forward but I think it has to start to come forward with a case that is very clear in setting out what its objective is and how any proposed air strikes, which as I say I would be sceptical of the efficacy of, would fit into a longer term political and diplomatic sustainable solution to what’s going on in Syria.  I don't think we should forget the fact, because it does illustrate the complexity of the situation on the ground in Syria, that two years ago when the House of Commons last voted on this issue the proposal was air strikes against Assad and the Assad regime.  That’s very different to the proposal now which is to have air strikes against ISIL and what that illustrates is that it is not a case in Syria of good guys versus bad guys, it is a complicated situation and I think it is incumbent on anybody proposing air strikes to see how that fits into a wider longer term more sustainable solution.  I believe that the only long term sustainable solution here, not that’s easy or can be delivered quickly, but the only sustainable solution is a political and a diplomatic one.  

DM: Okay, can I ask you about domestic matters?  You’ve tweeted recently that it’s the anniversary – how quickly time passes – of that poll, of the Yes campaign in the Scottish referendum being ahead and all the shenanigans that caused.  The most recent poll we’ve seen is that the Yes campaign is ahead again, does that mean that you are now considering with real bite putting a pledge for another referendum in your manifesto for the Scottish parliament elections next year?

NICOLA STURGEON: That’s a good try, Dermot.  You’re going to have to wait until we are closer to publishing our manifesto.  I’ve always said that, firstly the SNP you’re right has to decide whether to propose another referendum and I said there has to be a material change in circumstances but if we do decide to propose one either in this election or a future election, it is up to people in Scotland to decide whether to vote for such a manifesto. So the question of independence, both whether there is a referendum and whether we then vote for independence, is entirely in the hands of the Scottish people but I do think that there is a very important lesson for the UK government out of the poll we saw this week which showed that support for independence had grown to 53%, a clear majority in favour, is that if the UK government continues to behave the way it’s been behaving since the general election, not delivering in full on its commitment to more powers for the Scottish parliament, continuing to impose austerity on the vulnerable, pressing ahead before there has even been a vote in the House of Commons to prepare for the renewal of Trident, then many people in Scotland I think are going to look at that and say we’ll be better off independent. So as I said to David Cameron just after the general election, how this develops in the months and years to come, perhaps is as much down to how he behaves as it is down to anything that the SNP does.

DM: Okay, First Minister, Leader, thank you very much indeed.  Nicola Sturgeon.  

NICOLA STURGEON: Thank you very much.