SCOTTISH Labour’s biggest backer is a Renfrewshire-based firm which previously gave over £600,000 to the Tories, the Sunday National can reveal.
Peak Scientific, a global gas generator firm headquartered in Inchinnan, has handed over £400,000 in donations to the pro-Union party since 2022, becoming its biggest single donor.
In fact, the firm’s £200,000 donation was the only one registered by Scottish Labour with the Electoral Commission (EC) in the first quarter of 2023. A similar donation in 2022 was also the largest amount given to the party that year, outstripping contributions made by trade union Unison.
The last donations given to the Tories, £250,000 for HQ and £20,000 for the Scottish branch office, were made in March 2021.
The firm has also made seven donations to the LibDems since 2020, totalling £566,000.
Overall, Peak Scientific Holdings LTD, Peak Scientific Instruments LTD, and parent company Dusty TLP Limited, have donated £1,716,000 to pro-Union parties and one business group since 2019.
Last year, a spokesperson for the firm said it is “important that current opposition parties are well funded so they can positively communicate their plans for improving public services in Scotland”. However, they did not respond to the Sunday National’s request for comment.
Previously, Dusty TLP Ltd donated £100,000 to the central Labour Party on March 19 2021, shortly after giving Tory HQ £250,000 on February 26 2021.
Sir Keir Starmer took over the leadership of Labour in April 2020.
The parent company also gave £116,000 to the Scottish LibDems in three separate donations made on March 19, April 22 and July 14 2021.
Between 2019 and 2021, Peak Scientific only donated to the Conservatives and LibDems, according to EC data. They previously donated £15,000 to Scottish Labour in September 2014, but did not give the party any cash again until 2021.
The firm gave £10,000 to “Team Jackson” to support Jackson Carlaw’s bid for Scottish Tory leader on January 9 2020, giving the MSP a further £10,000 on January 15 that year.
Whilst Rishi Sunak was serving as chancellor under Boris Johnson, he visited Peak Scientific’s headquarters in Inchinnan for a tour on August 7 2020.
Just a week later, on August 14, Peak Scientific gave £250,000 to Tory HQ.
And, on April 6 2021, Peak Scientific Instruments gave £10,000 to SB [Scottish Business] Supports the Union Limited. The group’s website states that it is against a second independence referendum and that businesses should send a “clear signal that it does not welcome the additional uncertainty created by the headlong charge towards another referendum or breaking up the UK”.
The group’s directors are listed as former Tory MEP Struan Stevenson and Dr Robert Dow Kilgour, entrepreneur and chief executive of Dow Investments PLC.
In 2022 and 2023, Peak Scientific made no donations to the Tories, only giving cash to Scottish Labour and the LibDems.
So far, the firm has made two payments of £200,000 to Scottish Labour in the first quarters of 2022 and 2023. The first payment was made by parent company Dusty TLP, and the second by Peak Scientific Holdings.
Previously, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who took over from predecessor Richard Leonard in February 2021, said that his party fundraised just £250 in the 12 months before he was elected.
In 2022, Scottish Labour received £687,725.76 in donations from 22 sources. The Scottish Parliament gave the party the second highest amount, £174,276.74 to assist the party’s operations, while the third largest donor was Paul McManus, the Scottish drummer in rock band Gun, who gave the party £130,000.
Lord William Haughey, a Scottish businessman and peer, was the fourth largest donor handing the party £36,840, while Unison came fifth by giving the party £30,700.
The Renfrew-based company also donated the same amount to the LibDems in 2022 and 2023, totalling £400,000, in the first quarters of both years.
Scottish Labour did not respond to our request for comment.
The LibDems pointed to previous comments made by leader Alex Cole-Hamilton who described the donation in 2022 as a “massive vote of confidence” in his party, his leadership and the party’s “prospects for growth”.
Earlier this week, it emerged that founder and chairman of Peak Scientific Robin MacGeachy has been awarded an OBE in the King's Birthday Honours list, for services to manufacturing and philanthropy.
