JOHN Swinney has rejected claims that he showed a “lack of candour” made by the chairman of the Edinburgh tram inquiry.
The Scottish Tories called for the former deputy first minister to make a statement in the Scottish Parliament after the inquiry questioned his “integrity”.
The report by Lord Hardie, published on Tuesday, found that the delayed and over-budget tram project had a “litany of avoidable failures”.
In the end the project cost about £835 million, far more than the original estimate of £776m.
Hardie took particular aim at Swinney’s involvement, as well as other ministers, the Transport Initiatives Edinburgh (TIE), the company the local council set up to deliver the project, and Edinburgh City Council itself.
He said that Swinney’s decision to scale back Transport Scotland’s involvement in the project was a “mistake” resulting in a lack of expert oversight, also claiming that Scottish ministers failed to protect the public purse.
“During the course of the Princes Street dispute (Swinney) told Mr Mackay, the chairman of TIE, ‘to get it sorted’,” Hardie (above) said.
“His explanation that he meant TIE to follow the dispute resolution procedure does not bear scrutiny.”
The report also claimed Swinney was trying to “seek to exert influence in the background” after Transport Scotland walked away from the project in 2007.
Responding to the report for the first time since it was published, The Times reports that Swinney said: “On one specific question relating to the mediation process, my candour and integrity is called into question by the chairman. This is simply not supported by the evidence before him.
“I told the inquiry I was informed of the progress of the mediation but neither I nor my officials had a decision-making role or a veto. I have been entirely candid with the tram inquiry.”
Swinney’s response came after the report said: “Ministerial directions are formal instructions from ministers telling their officials to proceed with a spending proposal in a particular manner, despite an objection from the permanent secretary or other senior official in the department. They are extremely rare and have been described as the ‘nuclear option’.”
The report also said that Swinney (above) resisted the description of this as “pulling strings”.
However, Hardie had said: “In my view that is exactly what it was . . . I cannot reconcile this with Mr Swinney’s claim that he sought to exercise influence through the ‘proper channels’.”
The tram inquiry chairman also accused Swinney and Ainslie McLaughlin, a former senior director of Transport Scotland, of having a “lack of candour” while testifying under oath, adding that it called “into question their integrity”.
Speaking to the inquiry in 2018, Swinney said he would not change any of his decisions over the controversial tram project if he had the chance.
