THE UK Government is heading to court in a “desperate” bid to prevent the publication of internal polling on the Union.
In June 2021, the Tory administration was ordered to release the data it had collected on attitudes to Scottish independence by a first-tier tribunal.
The Cabinet Office was ordered to disclose the information requested by the SNP MP Tommy Sheppard under Freedom of Information laws within 28 days after its legal arguments against doing so were judged “not wholly clear”.
However, it has refused to do so, and instead appealed against the judge’s ruling. That appeal will be heard in a tribunal on Tuesday.
Sheppard said: “It has been almost a year now since the tribunal ruled that the information I requested on secret, tax-payer funded polling into public attitudes towards the Union must be made public, and still they continue to refuse.
“It is clear that the Tories are desperate to hide these results, and the only explanation for this that makes sense is that it does not help their case for keeping Scotland under Westminster control.”
The Edinburgh East MP also pointed to public cash which had been set aside for emergency Covid contracts which the UK Government instead used to poll on attitudes to the Union.
Top Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg insisted the spending had been “completely proper and justifiable”.
Sheppard said: “This is a UK Government that used the money for emergency Covid contracts – from the public purse – to commission political research on constitutional issues, instead of for more PPE or to help doctors and nurses on the front line.
“The general public deserve to know how and why their money has been misspent – and it should not have had to go to court to make that happen. They should have published the data a year ago after being told to do so by the Information Commissioner. The UK Government must now publish these findings without delay.”
He added: “People are seeing the real cost of living with Westminster on a daily basis now. Every day we wake up to a new story about the Tory cost of living crisis and how millions are struggling because the Chancellor is cruelly failing to lift a finger to help, or new reports of the disastrous consequences of Brexit, or further sleaze, cronyism and corruption engulfing the Westminster government.”
A Cabinet Office spokesperson told The National last week: “The UK Government regularly commissions research across the UK to understand public attitudes and behaviours to inform our campaigns, policies and to ensure we are delivering for people and families across the whole of the United Kingdom.
“The Scottish Government also conducts similar research for the same reasons and we maintain that it is in the public interest to preserve a safe space for the development of policy and the provision of advice to ministers.”
The spokesperson said it would be inappropriate to comment further until the appeal has been heard.
