Urquhart vote 'embarrassing defeat'

Dec 10 2012

The SNP has suffered an "embarrassing defeat" at the hands of one of its own former MSPs who rejected the party's praise of the Finance Secretary's budget, according to opposition parties.

Jean Urquhart vetoed an SNP bid to steer Holyrood's Finance Committee to support John Swinney's 2013/14 draft budget.

The SNP motion said Mr Swinney had "produced a budget which encourages sustainable growth", but Ms Urquhart voted with Conservative and Labour MSPs to reject this statement.

Ms Urquhart resigned from the party in October alongside fellow SNP rebel John Finnie over the party's new support for military alliance Nato, reducing the SNP's parliamentary majority to one. Their resignations shifted the balance of power on three Holyrood committees, with the SNP now in a minority on the finance, justice and equal opportunities committees.

Labour Finance Committee member Michael McMahon accused the SNP members, which include convener Kenneth Gibson and vice convener John Mason, of drafting a motion that was at odds with the evidence they heard.

"The SNP Government tried to prevent any real scrutiny of its budget by failing to give us sufficient detail and ordering its majority of backbenchers to block any attempts to get to the bottom of this," he said.

"Despite these efforts, the Finance Committee couldn't find any real evidence to sustain the Scottish Government's assertion that this is a budget for growth.

"On the contrary, witness after witness argued the opposite and it seems only those under the SNP whip believe this set of spending priorities is about creating jobs. John Swinney has a lot of work to do to convince the country that this budget is one which will result in the outcome he boasts it will."

An SNP spokesman said: "This is a positive report for the Scottish Government. What the Tories failed to mention is that their own amendment - which said that this wasn't a budget for economic growth - was also rejected by the committee. In both cases the committee voted to maintain the status quo of the report.

"More importantly, it's hypocritical for the Tories to be accusing others of damaging economic growth in the week that the Tory Chancellor downgraded his forecasts again and extended his failed austerity measures for at least another six years."