SNP ministers criticised after spending £150k so far on independence papers

Tory MSP Douglas Lumsden said it was a waste of taxpayers’ money

SNP ministers have been accused of wasting taxpayers’ money after spending more than £150,000 so far on a series of papers setting out the updated case for independence.

Tory MSP Douglas Lumsden said the “propaganda papers” had failed to answer key questions on issues such as currency, the fiscal framework and pensions. Jamie Hepburn, the SNP minister for independence, said the spending represented just 0.00025 per cent of the Scottish Government’s overall budget.

Nine papers have been published so far as part of the Building a New Scotland series, which aims to set out an updated prospectus for independence. Topics covered include citizenship, migration, social security and the economy – with more papers due in the coming weeks and months.

Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images

Speaking in Holyrood, Mr Hepburn said the cumulative cost of the first nine papers was £151,657, meaning the average cost of each paper was £16,850. "This cumulative total represents a value of around 0.00025 per cent of the total of the Scottish Government budget for this financial year,” he added.

Mr Lumsden, who had asked about the cost, said: “What a complete waste of taxpayers’ money, when the propaganda papers fail to answer any key questions about currency, fiscal framework and pensions, and even the First Minister previously described them as material that frankly sits on a website and nobody reads.”

The latter is a reference to comments made by Humza Yousaf during the SNP leadership contest last year.

Asked about how to win over voters who were sceptical about the finances of independence in 2014, he said: “In the Scottish Government actually we’ve produced a whole number of papers, prospectuses, but they’ve not got out to the activists that are doing the work on the doorstep.

“And we’ve got another whole bunch of papers that are being developed and designed. And my job, if I’m elected as First Minister, will be to put the government into fifth gear, to get these out there, but not just as prospectuses that frankly sit on a website and nobody reads.

“What we’ve got to do is make sure we’re arming you, as the activists, because we have the answers.”