Meeting of the Parliament 29 March 2017
I will, in a second.
Let me be clear: I very much welcome inward investment, which is important for growing our economy and creating jobs. We know that trade has been done with China for centuries and is nothing new. However, that does not mean that we should set aside the need to undertake due diligence of those with whom we are considering working.
There are real issues to do with the Scottish Government’s response. There were clear questions about the credibility of SinoFortone. Here is an organisation that had been set up with capital of £2. Yes—£2! The South China Morning Post, which I used to read when I lived in Hong Kong, gave me that nugget of information. The organisation does not sound like a billionaire Chinese group that would be able to invest £10 billion.
Then there was the question of all the projects that SinoFortone was undertaking in different parts of the UK. Willie Rennie mentioned some of them. There was the science park at Jesus College, Cambridge. It does not exist—it is simply not real. There was Crossrail, in London—again, that was not true—and who could forget the £700 million bid for Liverpool Football Club? That, too, was not true. Mr Zhang was a chancer who managed to fool the SNP and the First Minister. What a farce, and how embarrassing. There was no money, no backing and no credibility, but the SNP did not have a clue, because it never bothered to check. It was taken in by charm and a flashy suit. For the Scottish Government to be fooled in such a way raises pretty fundamental questions about its competence.
If that was not bad enough, we heard from the former chair of the ethics council of the Norwegian oil fund that the China Railway Group had been accused of gross corruption. Amnesty International wrote to the Scottish Government about alleged human rights violations. However, the SNP did not know about those, because it never bothered to check.
I welcome the partially apologetic tone of the SNP amendment. There is an acknowledgement, for the first time in a year, that the SNP got it wrong. To be frank, that is not enough. We need transparency and parliamentary oversight to stop such a mistake happening again. Bland assurances are simply insufficient.
The lack of transparency in the case that we are considering is truly damning. It took months before the information about the memorandum of understanding and associated emails were in the public domain. The SNP deliberately misled Parliament and the public. Do members remember that it said that Sir Brian Souter, a one-time SNP donor, was not involved in the deal? That was simply not true. It is perfectly legitimate that one of Scotland’s well-known business owners would be involved, helping to make introductions and even considering investing. What is beyond strange is that the SNP, knowing all that, flatly denied that he was involved. He was simply airbrushed from the agenda. I cannot help but wonder, was the SNP embarrassed by Sir Brian’s involvement or was it simply so arrogant that it thought that it could get away with not telling the truth?
Even more extraordinary, as the details emerged, the SNP decided, as Dean Lockhart said earlier, that it could just blame someone else. There was a surprise for us: the Government had never done anything like that before, Presiding Officer. Yes—it was the fault of the Opposition parties and it was the fault of the press. Unusually, it was not also the fault of the UK Government.
I am embarrassed that the SNP Government was taken in so easily. In terms that the Chinese will understand, I say that Scotland lost face by the Government taking the decision that it took. We need due diligence to take place in all cases, and the Scottish Parliament should have oversight. We welcome investment and we want to grow the economy, but such work needs to be open and transparent.