A SCOTTISH Tory MSP has been condemned for accepting match tickets from drinks producer Heineken before later withdrawing his support for a key part of Scotland's deposit return scheme (DRS).
The Daily Record revealed on Tuesday that Maurice Golden was handed the free tickets by Heineken to attend sold-out Scotland internationals at Hampden and Murrayfield in 2021 and 2022.
Now one of the scheme's foremost critics, the former Tory environment spokesman previously supported calls for glass to be included in the DRS.
In a 2019 press release, Golden said the initiative would "tackle litter and improve recycling rates" and added that Scotland's whisky industry would welcome it. The release was later deleted from his website.
The North East MSP even backed the UK Government's recent move to block Scotland's DRS from including glass.
This comes despite sharing a tweet in 2019 which read: "If you are going to do something, do it properly - Scotland’s new deposit returns system should include glass. It’s just common sense if we are serious about reducing litter and improving recycling."
Mark Ruskell, Scottish Greens environment spokesman, told The Daily Record: "Just stop and think about the absurdity of the situation we find ourselves in for a moment.
"You have a Tory MSP whose party stood on a manifesto to include glass in the DRS, whose party helped vote it through the Scottish Parliament, who tweeted about the merits of including glass, and who published an article on his website about the need to include glass only to then later delete it.
"The same MSP received hundreds of pounds worth of hospitality from a drinks producer and around the same time they ditch their previous commitment on glass as policy.
"It at best calls into question the wisdom of accepting these gifts.
"At worst, it leaves more questions to be answered by the Prime Minister as to what kind of access the industry has had to his members that has seen them switch from a party committed to tackling poor glass recycling through DRS to suddenly deciding the environment doesn’t matter after all."
A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives responded: "The Greens' attempts to deflect from their own failures on Scotland's deposit return scheme are becoming increasingly desperate."
