Chamber and committees

Will the member give way?

Arrogance, too—unbelievable.

SNP members might not like that characterisation and the comparison with organised crime, but they should listen to senior people on their own side who dared to ask questions, such as the former MP Joanna Cherry or former treasurer Douglas Chapman.

“Nothing to see here,” they were warned by Nicola Sturgeon, and “Everything is fine,” they were assured by John Swinney, but everything was not fine—far from it. For at least 12 years, Peter Murrell was stealing from under their noses; more than 1,000 items were bought with stolen money: jewellery, watches, homeware, toiletries, electronics and Montblanc pens that cost hundreds of pounds, just like the pens that Nicola Sturgeon flaunted right here when she was First Minister. Who on earth spends three grand on a salt and pepper set made out of crystal?

Then of course there is the 125-grand camper van that Nicola Sturgeon says she did not see. It is 24 feet long, 10 feet high and weighs 3.5 tonnes, but Nicola Sturgeon did not see it, just as she and John Swinney did not see anything remotely suspicious year after year after year.

Peter Murrell stole at least £400,000 to bankroll his and his wife’s luxury lifestyle. In a plea deal, £60,000-worth of goods were wiped from Murrell’s charge sheet—a plea deal crucially timed for just after the Scottish election. Did Peter Murrell discuss that with Nicola Sturgeon when they met at Easter time? Did the police agree with the Crown Office to prosecute just one person? Those are some of the many questions for an inquiry. Here is another: did Peter Murrell steal taxpayers’ money? We still do not know the answer to that.

During this extraordinary SNP scandal, journalists also suffered bully-boy tactics. Hannah Rodger, John Ferguson, Georgia Edkins and others were lied to and smeared. They were told that they were wrong when they were right. Their professional reputations were maliciously denigrated.

We saw the same tactics during the Alex Salmond scandal. The SNP used every dirty trick to destroy the man who delivered it an independence referendum. It continues to attack him as he lies in his grave.

What of the young victims whose party protected the predatory sex offender Jordan Linden?

This week, allegations have resurfaced about a businessman handing Peter Murrell £50,000 to secure a safe Westminster seat for a relative. Now the SNP has been found guilty of contempt of court relating to the Alex Salmond case.

The sleaze keeps rising, and the stench gets worse, yet John Swinney sticks his head in the sand. His response to all this, as we heard from Jamie Hepburn there, is to hide behind the election result. He reckons that that gives him a free pass: telling the truth does not matter, attacking the police and journalists does not matter and silencing whistleblowers and crime victims does not matter. He preaches transparency, candour and respect, yet he practises secrecy, dishonesty and disrespect. He pontificates about misinformation while his party runs a breathtaking campaign of misinformation about renewable energy. They reckon they will get away with it, because they always do.

The Green amendment seeks to help the SNP by muddying the waters and diverting attention. Ross Greer is running to the rescue of John Swinney, who he calls his work dad—the same Mr Greer who thanked Peter Murrell for giving him a hefty pay rise, then deleted the tweet.

The SNP’s rank of taxpayer-funded advisers will tell it to brazen it out, but public trust in Scottish politics is in freefall. Just weeks ago, one in two Scots did not exercise their right to vote. Today, we have a collective duty to do the right thing and back a proper inquiry, because if MSPs refuse to do so, Scotland’s MPs surely must.

I move amendment S7M-00294.3, to insert at end:

“; believes that public trust is undermined when legitimate questions go unanswered; notes the conviction of Peter Murrell following Operation Branchform; believes that scrutiny is essential to democratic accountability, and calls for any independent inquiry to establish what lessons must be learned from this scandal and what reforms are required to restore public confidence in Scottish politics.”

I was going to ask whether the member had anything to say about the journalists in Scotland who were denigrated, attacked and told they were lying by members of his party when they were doing their hard and tenacious work to get the truth about the Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell scandal.

I remember how sleazy, arrogant and entitled Labour became when it dominated Scottish politics. Does the minister see that at all in his party?

Peter Murrell stole at least £400,000 from the Scottish National Party. He simply could not have done so without the protection of his wife, Nicola Sturgeon, and his childhood friend John Swinney. During the crime spree, the SNP was in receipt of more than £10 million of taxpayers’ money. [Interruption.] I do not know whether Stephen Flynn is cheering me on or heckling me—he is probably cheering me on, because he is keeping his eye on the prize.

Last week, in the chamber, John Swinney told me that no public money had been stolen, but Mr Swinney also spent years denying the disappearance of ring-fenced independence funds—until yesterday, when he suddenly changed his story. Is John Swinney still 100 per cent sure that Peter Murrell did not get his sticky fingers on any public money?

Dearie me—what a performance of crocodile tears. That was so sad. The SNP treats taxpayers with the same contempt as it treats its own members.

Former accountant Alistair Cameron joined the SNP in the 1960s, before half of that lot were even born, and he donated money to the party for years. He passed away a few months ago at the age of 89. His daughter Susan told me this morning that he would have felt betrayed not only by Peter Murrell’s theft but by those who did not stop Peter Murrell but facilitated and enabled his crime spree.

John Swinney has spent years defending every single indefensible SNP scandal, but all he has in response to this seedy crime spree is angry, fake deflection. John Swinney’s and Nicola Sturgeon’s complex web of stories is unravelling.

Does John Swinney not realise that his leadership is also unravelling because of his central role in this scandal?

The Peter Murrell scandal is not just about the Scottish National Party’s toxic internal culture; it goes to the heart of Government and Scotland’s justice system. John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon did not stop Peter Murrell; they enabled him. Sturgeon warned SNP members to stop asking difficult questions and John Swinney assured everyone that the SNP’s finances were sound. Their shield of protection gave Murrell a licence to steal. People want to know why Nicola Sturgeon was not in the dock beside her husband. Will John Swinney back our call for the Lord Advocate to publish all the information that relates to the case?

That was the usual desperate deflection from John Swinney. He is trying to shut down scrutiny, and we will not stand for it.

John Swinney says that the SNP is the victim, although there are new reports that taxpayers’ money was also stolen. If the SNP is the victim, did it exercise its right in law to seek a review of the Crown Office’s prosecution decision? Will John Swinney now follow the money, which bought a camper van, Montblanc pens and a home library? Is he taking legal action to force Peter Murrell to pay compensation or has John Swinney asked the Crown Office to use the proceeds of crime laws to recover luxury stolen goods from Peter Murrell and Nicola Sturgeon?

Here we go again. This is the first debate of the new parliamentary session, but it is not about the NHS, in which patients are stuck waiting for years in misery and agony; it is not about education, where pupils are told to accept mediocrity and classroom violence; it is not about Scots being forced to pay more and more tax to bankroll the Scottish National Party’s out-of-control benefits bill; and nor is it about the betrayal of Scotland’s oil and gas workers by two Governments—SNP and Labour.

The debate is not about any of those important issues because, of course, John Swinney believes in only one thing: breaking up the United Kingdom. He is holding Scotland back, stuck in the grip of constitutional paralysis. His party is not actually interested in improving people’s lives or fixing the public services that it broke. For his party, that is too much like hard work. Of course, the SNP will never be honest about the financial cost of independence. If the SNP ever got its way, Scotland would face a funding gap of £26 billion. Scots would face extreme tax rises while public services would be cut to the bone.

The timing of today’s debate is comical. Today of all days, John Swinney is banging the independence drum when the news agenda is dominated by his party stealing money from its own members and supporters—money that the SNP promised to ring fence for independence. Here we are just 24 hours after Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, admitted using more than £400,000 of stolen money to fund their lavish lifestyle. In 2021, John Swinney went on the BBC and publicly dismissed valid concerns about the SNP’s finances. Nicola Sturgeon also told those with concerns to stay quiet. When questioned by police, she repeatedly said, “No comment”—the tactics of organised crime.

Today of all days, John Swinney reckons that the SNP can be trusted to take full control of an independent Scotland and our nation’s finances. This is the same John Swinney who did not have a clue that his childhood friend, whom he appointed SNP chief executive, was plundering their own party. You would need to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the painful lack of self-awareness on the SNP benches. Does John Swinney not see how this sounds to people who despair at what the Parliament has become?

The sad truth is that John Swinney is never, ever going to change—we should not hope for any change at all. However, the Scottish Conservatives will always stand up to and call out this nonsense. In 2014, the people of Scotland said no, and John Swinney has never respected their vote. He should know that the law is clear that the Parliament does not have the power to hold a referendum. Nicola Sturgeon went to court on that. She spent hundreds of thousands of pounds—taxpayers’ money this time—and she lost. In the most recent Scottish election, more voters backed unionist parties than parties supporting separation. However, none of those facts matters to John Swinney and the SNP.

I recently spent time in Aberdeen along with our UK party leader, Kemi Badenoch, and we see the damage that is being inflicted on Scotland’s oil and gas sector, with thousands of jobs being lost. Labour does not care, and it remains against new drilling. Here is my challenge to John Swinney today. His party still has a presumption against new oil and gas licences, so let us send a message of support to the oil and gas workers and give a call to action. Let us end the SNP’s opposition, get Britain drilling again and drop the damaging independence obsession.

I move amendment S7M-00105.2, to leave out from “welcomes” to end and insert:

“believes that its seventh session should be focused exclusively on resolving the issues that matter to most people in Scotland, such as dealing with NHS waiting times, reversing Scotland’s falling educational standards, tackling the growing benefits bill and delivering value-for-money for Scotland’s taxpayers; urges the Scottish Government to drop its demands to hold a second independence referendum, and calls for the Scottish Government to drop its position of a presumption against new oil and gas licences, as outlined in its Draft Energy Strategy published in the last session of the Parliament.”

14:40