John Swinney sworn in as Scotland’s first minister
John Swinney has been legally sworn in as Scotland’s seventh first minister.
The 60-year-old is now Keeper of the Scottish Seal, also known as the Great Seal, after taking the oath of office and pledging his allegiance to the King.
The seal allows the monarch to authorise official documents without having to sign each one.
As Keeper of the Scottish Seal, Mr Swinney now has the authority to make decisions on behalf of the crown, which effectively means he can lead the country with the support of the Scottish parliament.
Mr Swinney taking the oath. Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
The ceremony took place at the Court of Session in Edinburgh in front of Scotland’s most senior judge, the Lord President Lord Carloway.
Mr Swinney’s family, including his wife Elizabeth, brother David, and 13-year-old son Matthew, accompanied him to court.
Mr Swinney with wife Elizabeth and son Matthew. Pic: PA
Speaking to reporters after the ceremony, Mr Swinney said taking the oaths had been an “overwhelming moment” as he spoke of his pride at being first minister and his family’s support.
He said: “I look forward to dedicating my future to serving the people of Scotland.
“It’s an extraordinary opportunity to change lives for the better and I’ll continue to use every moment that’s available to me to do so.
“For my family this is a very abrupt change of our circumstances. We didn’t think this would happening about 10 days ago.”
Mr Swinney with his wife Elizabeth Quigley on the steps of Bute House on Tuesday. Pic: PA
Mr Swinney, who has replaced Humza Yousaf as SNP leader, is now expected to begin appointing his cabinet.
A “significant” role has been promised to former finance secretary Kate Forbes, who chose not to run in the SNP leadership race and instead threw her support behind Mr Swinney.
The first minister pledged to devote himself to the job after winning Holyrood’s backing. It came following the SNP leadership race in which he stood unopposed.
Read more:
Who is John Swinney?
Mr Swinney with former first ministers Humza Yousaf and Nicola Sturgeon. Pic: PA
Mr Swinney, who was deputy first minister under Nicola Sturgeon, previously said he is “no interim leader” and intends to lead the SNP beyond the next general and Scottish elections.
He has vowed to focus on the economy, jobs, the cost of living, the NHS, education, public services, and the climate crisis.
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Mr Swinney offers ‘eternal gratitude’ to his wife
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The first minister has confirmed he has no intention of reinstating the Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens and will instead take issues on a case-by-case basis with a minority administration of 63 MSPs.
Mr Swinney told opposition parties at the Scottish parliament: “If we want to fund our schools and hospitals, if we want to give our businesses a competitive edge, if we want to take climate action, if we want to eradicate child poverty, if we want to change people’s lives for the better, we have got to work together to do so.”
He also thanked his wife Elizabeth, who has multiple sclerosis (MS), making clear his “profound eternal gratitude” to her for “the sacrifices she is prepared to make” so he could take on the job.
Politics
Specialist teams and online investigators deployed across England and Wales to tackle ‘national emergency’ of violence against women and girls
Specialist investigation teams for rape and sexual offences are to be created across England and Wales as the home secretary declares violence against women and girls a “national emergency”.
Shabana Mahmood said the dedicated units will be in place across every force by 2029 as part of Labour’s violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy due to be launched later this week.
The use of Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs), which had been trialled in several areas, will also be rolled out across England and Wales. They are designed to target abusers by imposing curfews, electronic tags and exclusion zones.
The orders cover all forms of domestic abuse, including economic abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour, stalking and ‘honour’-based abuse. Breaching the terms can carry a prison term of up to five years.
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Govt ‘thinking again’ on abuse strategy
Nearly £2m will also be spent funding a network of officers to target offenders operating within the online space.
Teams will use covert and intelligence techniques to tackle violence against women and girls via apps and websites.
A similar undercover network funded by the Home Office to examine child sexual abuse has arrested over 1,700 perpetrators.
Abuse is ‘national emergency’
Ms Mahmood said in a statement: “This government has declared violence against women and girls a national emergency.
“For too long, these crimes have been considered a fact of life. That’s not good enough. We will halve it in a decade.
“Today, we announce a range of measures to bear down on abusers, stopping them in their tracks. Rapists, sex offenders and abusers will have nowhere to hide.”
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Angiolini Inquiry: Recommendations are ‘not difficult’
The target to halve violence against women and girls in a decade is a Labour manifesto pledge.
The government said the measures build on existing policy, including facial recognition technology to identify offenders, improving protections for stalking victims, making strangulation a criminal offence and establishing domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms.
Read more from Sky News:
Demands for violence and abuse reforms
Women still feel unsafe on streets
Minister ‘clarifies’ violence strategy
Labour has ‘failed women’
But the Conservatives said Labour had “failed women” and “broken its promises” by delaying the publication of the violence against women and girls strategy.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said that Labour “shrinks from uncomfortable truths, voting against tougher sentences and presiding over falling sex-offender convictions. At every turn, Labour has failed women”.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will be on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News this morning from 8.30am.
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published a crypto wallet and custody guide investor bulletin on Friday, outlining best practices and common risks of different forms of crypto storage for the investing public.
The SEC’s bulletin lists the benefits and risks of different methods of crypto custody, including self-custody versus allowing a third-party to hold digital assets on behalf of the investor.
If investors choose third-party custody, they should understand the custodian’s policies, including whether it “rehypothecates” the assets held in custody by lending them out or if the service provider is commingling client assets in a single pool instead of holding the crypto in segregated customer accounts.
Crypto wallet types were also outlined in the SEC guide, which broke down the pros and cons of hot wallets, which are connected to the internet, and offline storage in cold wallets.
Hot wallets carry the risk of hacking and other cybersecurity threats, according to the SEC, while cold wallets carry the risk of permanent loss if the offline storage fails, a storage device is stolen, or the private keys are compromised.
The SEC’s crypto custody guide highlights the sweeping regulatory change at the agency, which was hostile to digital assets and the crypto industry under former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s leadership.
Related: SEC sends warning letters to ETF issuers targeting untamed leverage
The crypto community celebrates the SEC guide as a transformational change in the agency
“The same agency that spent years trying to kill the industry is now teaching people how to use it,” Truth For the Commoner (TFTC) said in response to the SEC’s crypto custody guide.
The SEC is providing “huge value” to crypto investors by educating prospective crypto holders about custody and best practices, according to Jake Claver, the CEO of Digital Ascension Group, a company that provides services to family offices.
SEC regulators published the guide one day after SEC Chair Paul Atkins said that the legacy financial system is moving onchain.
On Thursday, the SEC gave the green light to the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a clearing and settlement company, to begin tokenizing financial assets, including equities, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and government debt securities.
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