Meeting of the Parliament 29 March 2017
Perhaps I will give way later.
Chinese companies have experience of investing across the world. In progressing this potential investment in Scotland they would, quite rightly, have expected a degree of competence from the SNP Government. Instead, after a few months of dealing with the SNP, and after the series of mishaps that were highlighted by Willie Rennie, the Chinese investors decided to walk away from the deal, calling it a shambles. That is deeply regrettable.
That shambles does not just reflect badly on the SNP and the cabinet secretary; it has the potential to damage Scotland’s reputation as a place to do business. More broadly, the shambles reflects how the SNP has mismanaged Scotland over the past 10 years. First, we saw the SNP’s blatant disregard for Parliament. We heard from the First Minister that Parliament is paramount, but then the SNP failed to announce to Parliament the request for section 30 powers to hold a second independence referendum. It failed to listen when Parliament voted down the Scottish Government on five separate occasions. In this instance, it failed to inform Parliament of the signing of a £10 billion investment agreement—the single largest potential investment in Scotland’s history. Parliament found out about the Chinese agreement only from a photograph that appeared in the Chinese trade press. That is ridiculous.
The SNP tells us that Parliament is paramount, but that is the case only when that suits it politically. We have seen the SNP’s total incompetence as a Government. Before the MOU was signed, there was a failure to do the most basic due diligence on the counterparties. At that stage, the First Minister had already given what was described as “confidence” to investors that the Government was
“ready for major scale investment”,
and work had been undertaken to identify potential projects for development—all that without doing any basic checks on the counterparties whatsoever. A simple Google search would have highlighted concerns that were subsequently raised and that subsequently emerged in relation to human rights—a point that was made by Amnesty International.
After the MOU was signed, the deal was announced—in China—by way of social media and the Chinese trade press, but not in Scotland. There was no ministerial contact with the Chinese investors for three months. That left a potential £10 billion investment in the Scottish economy to drift without any follow-up. The SNP discovered that the MOU had been cancelled by the Chinese investors only when they read about it in the Sunday papers. You simply could not make it up.
This sorry saga highlights the classic response of the SNP when things go wrong: blame others. This time, however, even the SNP could not blame Brexit, Westminster or the oil price, so it found someone else to blame for the China investment shambles. It tried to blame the Opposition parties—for wrecking a deal that we did not know about, for daring to ask basic questions about a £10 billion investment when we discovered it on social media, and for demanding transparency, parliamentary accountability and competence from the SNP Government. Clearly, that is too much to ask for.
Our amendment highlights the fact that we welcome international investment into the Scottish economy, whether from investors in China, elsewhere in Asia or otherwise, provided that it is appropriate for Scotland, that it has been subjected to proper due diligence, including with respect to human rights, and that it is on terms that are in the best interests of Scotland.