Scottish Labour demands publication of the SNP’s £10bn “secret deal”

Scottish Labour is putting pressure on the SNP to publish details of a “secret deal” worth up to £10bn the Scottish Government made with a Chinese consortium.

The investment agreement was signed by Nicola Sturgeon on March 21, three days before Holyrood was dissolved for the election period, but was not made known at the time. Details only came to light after being reported in the Chinese media – including quotes from controversial businessman and SNP donor Brian Souter.

Now Scottish Labour are demanding to know more about the “memorandum of understanding”, which Sturgeon claims only “commits us to explore possible investment”. MSPs are questioning why information was withheld from them at a time when they could have been holding the Government to account over the details of the deal.

Scottish Labour frontbencher Jackie Baillie said that the SNP’s behaviour over the agreement was “unacceptable” and demanded that the “secret deal” be published immediately.

“This stinks,” Baillie said. “This secret deal needs to be published now. Voters deserve the facts on deals the SNP Government have signed on their behalf and it is unacceptable to refuse to tell people what is in this deal.

“It simply isn’t good enough to blame the purdah election period. The SNP signed this deal before that but kept it quiet – people deserve to know why.”

On the fact that Brian Souter had been quoted in the initial reports of the story, Baillie said that it “isn’t acceptable that a millionaire SNP donor knows the details of this deal but the people of Scotland don’t.

“After the controversy relating to the Freedom of Information Commissioner withholding information critical of SNP ministers, complete transparency is now absolutely vital. The arrogance of the SNP here is unbelievable. Scots deserve to know what is going on.”

Scottish Labour have had a difficult election campaign so far and are likely to be battling it out with the Scottish Conservatives for second place in next month’s election. Details of the deal, and accusations of a cover up, could be a rare chance to get on the front foot against an SNP who expect another landslide.