Meeting of the Parliament 29 March 2017
Willie Rennie has set out in detail the extent of the SNP Government’s complacency and incompetence in its dealings with the two companies that have been named. To argue, as SNP ministers and MSPs consistently have, that my party’s response is an attack on genuine efforts to secure valuable inward investment for Scotland or on legitimate trade deals with China is a complete red herring. It is typical deflection from a Government that believes that nothing is ever its fault and that someone else is always to blame.
Let us be clear that, if the Prime Minister had invited the two companies to Downing Street and signed such an agreement without having done the most basic of checks, only to discover later that the companies were linked to human rights abuses and gross corruption and that the Prime Minister was the latest useful idiot who had been drawn into a string of photo opportunities, each of which is designed to induce the next and all of which have come to nothing, the SNP and its keyboard warriors would be demanding heads on spikes. However, because this shambles was cooked up in St Andrew’s house, we were all told to simmer down. The SNP even had the audacity to denounce our criticisms as an attack on Scotland’s inward investment record—a claim that is as artificial as SinoFortone’s bona fides.
SinoFortone has registered no accounts since it was established. Its website has been taken down, and questions surround its London headquarters, which has no record of the company’s existence. It has been reported that the website is down for “updating” and that the office was apparently only a virtual one.
SinoFortone did not allow such minor setbacks to thwart its bold ambitions. What happened to those ambitions? Plans to invest £2 billion in Welsh biomass went up in smoke; the deal on power stations for prawns was fishy, at best; £100 million for a theme park in Kent is on the slide; and a science park in Cambridge was pure science fiction. The list—and puns—go on, Presiding Officer, as do SinoFortone’s antics.
The risk now is that the First Minister’s signature and photo op, which were choreographed by the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Jobs and Fair Work, are being used to lend credibility to SinoFortone’s latest dealings. The £10 billion deal with Nicola Sturgeon has already been quoted to substantiate claims of a possible SinoFortone takeover of Liverpool Football Club. Had that materialised, I would—as a diehard Reds fanatic—have been supporting more than a simple motion of censure on the economy secretary this afternoon.
There was even talk of using UK investment to create a network of football academies across China. Perhaps that is why, in answers to questions earlier this month, Keith Brown suggested that the Scottish Government’s final contact with SinoFortone, back in September, was to help the company to arrange for an Inner Mongolian delegation to come to Scotland to learn about football development. Most jaded members of the tartan army might argue that that was questionable behaviour under the Trade Descriptions Act.
In November, the First Minister said that there were lessons to learn. Two weeks later, in response to a topical question from me, Keith Brown could not identify what those lessons were and said that all future agreements would be signed “in the normal way”. I welcome the cabinet secretary’s more candid and contrite tone in this afternoon’s debate but, to most people in Scotland, checking whether companies have connections with gross corruption and human rights abuses after inviting them to the First Minister’s residence, after putting pen to paper and after the photo op and the announcement in the Chinese press is anything but normal.
The debate has belatedly forced the economy secretary to give Parliament some of the answers that we have been desperately seeking for the best part of a year. All that we are waiting for now is an explicit apology, so I urge Parliament to back Willie Rennie’s motion.
16:20