SNP gives taxpayers cash to main party donor
News TeamA council LED BY THE SNP is facing an investigation.
£1million of taxpayers money has been earmarked by the Nationalists’ main donor, Souter, for a planned transport project.
A six-figure sum has been set aside by Fife Council so that a hovercraft service can run between Kirkcaldy and Portobello. This is the brainchild of SNP donor Brian Souter’s firm Stagecoach. The local authority pencilled in the funding without having a business plan in place.
And Labour is demanding an Audit Scotland probe after it emerged.
This is the latest attempt by Stagecoach to win public subsidy for a hovercraft service across the Firth of Forth.
Stagecoach is calculated to make pre-tax profits of £192.2m next year. In 2007 the owners of Stagecoach bankrolled the SNP’s Holyroodelection campaign with a cool £500,000 donation. Last year the Scottish Government and stakeholders were asked to contribute £3.3 Million for the project.
The service was put on the back burner after Labour questioned why taxpayers’ money was being handed out to help Stagecoach - the SNP’s main donor’s company.
Earlier this year Fife Council set aside £1 Million in infrastructure costs.
Fife Council is jointly run by SNP and Lib Dems with Lib Dems Councillor Tony Martin saying “We have put in £1 Million, which came out of our revenue budget” and that Stagecoach would only get the money if Edinburgh City Council contributed the same amount - another SNP and Lib Dem run Council.
“The money would be used for building ramps for the hovercraft to go on in Kirkcaldy. I’m very supportive of it, but we need a commitment from the Edinburgh side,” he said.
Before handing over the £1 Million, Tony Martin said that the Council must receive a plan setting out a full business case for the service.
Souter said: “If I could get Edinburgh to give as much help as Fife, we would be up and running”.
The funding commitment of the hovercraft project will be discussed next week by the Council
Labour MSP, George Foulkeshas concerns: “Fife Council have to be careful for two reasons. One is that they might be subject to European regulations. Secondly, they should be concerned about favouring one company that has connections with people who are funding the SNP. This will raise a lot of eyebrows in the Kingdom when the council is cutting back on home care services. I will be writing to Audit Scotland to ask for an investigation into how this £1m was allocated.”
Murdo Fraser, Tory MSP, said: “Given that the government has been cool towards a hovercraft, it is highly questionable that Fife Council seem to think it is worthy of support. And given that Brian Souteris the highest-profile donor to the SNP, SNP-run councils have to be extremely careful to demonstrate their dealings withhim have been done in a proper arms-length manner.”
SNP representative and Fife Council leader, Peter Grant, said: “If we, as a local authority, think there are significant benefits to the people of Fife from this service, we should see if we can support it in some way. If George Foulkes thinks we’ll just put money in Brian Souter’s back pocket then he is out of touch.”
A spokesperson from Stagecoach said the company was committed to the £10 Million investment to the project and that “Stagecoach Group does not give money to any political party. We are apolitical and work with councils and governments of lots of different outlooks.
Asked why the firm could not meet the full costs of the hovercraft service, given that pre-tax profits of next year calculated at £192.2m, he said: “We have asked for potential public funding support for a project that would bring economic, social and transport benefits to people both in Fife and Edinburgh.”
The service went on trial between 16th and 28th July in which 32,099 passengers travelled on the hovercraft.
At a meeting of the South East of Scotland Partnership (SEStran), which provided £92,000 of the £100,000 public subsidy towards the hovercraft trial, it was recorded that: “The press release from Stagecoach appears to have contradicted some of the information from the consultants.”
The Chairman of SEStran and Midlothian councillor, Colin Imrie, met Stagecoach earlier this year and said “both parties recognised that much more work needed to be done on the business plan before any commitment for public funding could be made.
“SEStran support the scheme in principle, but we must be confident that a solid business case exists.”
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