Dewar was set to quit over Holyrood's soaring cost

Published on Friday 1 May 2009 22:00

DONALD Dewar was on the verge of resigning over fears he had misled the Scottish Parliament during the ongoing row over the rising cost of the Holyrood building, it has emerged.

His former special adviser, David Whitton, now a Labour MSP, revealed the late First Minister was prepared to stand down and had to be persuaded to change his mind.

Mr Whitton said Mr Dewar would never have agreed to the actual 400 million-plus cost of the Scottish Parliament building and said he would have been "horrified" at the final figure.

Next week marks the tenth anniversary of the first Scottish Parliament elections, which saw Mr Dewar become the first First Minister of Scotland.

Asked if the spiralling costs of the Holyrood building would have been the political downfall of the Labour leader, Mr Whitton said: "No, I don't think it would have been.

"He certainly didn't believe it should have cost as much as it did and I firmly believe he would have been horrified.

"If somebody had said to him on day one, you want a new building it will cost 400 million, he would have said 'forget it.'"

"There's no way he would have spent that kind of money on it and I can remember one very famous occasion where he believed he had misled parliament over the ongoing cost and was talking of resigning.

"That's how seriously he took those things," Mr Whitton said.

In an interview to be broadcast on Clyde 2 tomorrow, Mr Whitton recalls his time as Mr Dewar's advisor in the early years of devolution.

He added: "We were then told by the then permanent secretary there was a mistake in the number and the true figure was some 17 million more.

"And Donald, being the old-fashioned Westminster-type politician, believed if a minister misled parliament he should resign, and I had to talk him out of resigning. I said it wasn't your fault, you gave the information you believed to be correct."

"He sent a letter to Alex Salmond apologising for the error, as it was a question from Mr Salmond that caused the answer, and he then went back to parliament that afternoon to correct the statement," Mr Whitton said.