Exclusive:Westminster committee to 'consider' probe into Peter Murrell embezzlement
Scottish Affairs Committee chair Patricia Ferguson said she was “aware of calls” for an inquiry, after eight of the committee’s members said they backed an investigation
A Westminster committee is to consider a probe into the embezzlement of SNP funds by Peter Murrell.
Scottish Affairs Committee chair Patricia Ferguson said she was “aware of calls” for an inquiry, after eight of the committee’s members said they backed an investigation.
SNP First Minister John Swinney has rejected calls for a Holyrood inquiry into Mr Murrell after he pled guilty embezzling £400,000 from the party.
This has led most of the MPs on the Scottish Affairs Committee to say that it should hold one instead.
Ms Ferguson said: “We are aware of calls for the Scottish Affairs Committee to undertake work in respect of the recent developments relating to the SNP’s party finances.
“The Committee will consider this issue in due course.”
The Scotsman revealed yesterday that eight of the 11 MPs on the committee backed a probe.
Labour MPs Lillian Jones, Kirsteen Sullivan, Maureen Burke, and Tory Jack Rankin all came out in support of an investigation on Friday.
This followed Lib Dems Susan Murray and Angus MacDonald, Labour’s Douglas McAllister and Conservative Harriet Cross all calling for an inquiry.
Ms Ferguson is still to say whether she would back an investigation.
SNP Westminster leader Dave Doogan - who also sits on the committee - is also yet to comment.
Labour MP Elaine Stewart is also yet to comment - but she will soon leave the committee as she was recently made a UK government aide.
The Scottish Affairs Committee is supposed to scrutinise the work of the UK government.
But it has been suggested that an inquiry into the SNP could take place because the party has received public funds.
The committee usually makes a unanimous decision when deciding what subjects to focus on in an inquiry.
It is unclear whether it would hold an inquiry if there was a small minority of members against it.
Nicola Sturgeon said on Friday she wished she had not kept her estranged husband as SNP chief executive when she became party leader in 2014.
When asked about it at a book festival in Wales, she told the audience: "Definitely, with the benefit of hindsight, that was a decision I wish I had taken differently."
She added: "My judgement was that the chief executive was not line-managed by the party leader. There is a national executive committee.
"My judgement was that it was not fair for him to lose his job, that he had done well, because I was taking on a new job.
"If I could turn back the clock, of course, I would take a different decision."
Ms Sturgeon also said that she did not shut down SNP figures who raised concerns about the party’s finances when she was leader.
The former first minister hit out at her critics and said people were saying things about her that were “not true” as she warned: “Now that I’m able to speak, wait for a lot more of it.”
Critics, including former SNP MP and NEC member Joanna Cherry, said those who had raised financial concerns under Ms Sturgeon’s leadership were shut down and called “traitors”.
A leaked video of a 2023 NEC meeting showed Ms Sturgeon warning party members to be “very careful” suggesting there were issues with its finances.
Just two months later, Ms Cherry, along with then SNP treasurer Douglas Chapman, resigned from the ruling body, citing concerns about transparency.
Ms Sturgeon was asked at the Hay Festival in Wales if she had shut people down for raising questions about party accounts.
“No, I didn’t,” she said. “These are comments that have been reported from me back in 2021.
“There was no suggestion that there was an issue of embezzlement of SNP funds until about, to my knowledge, 2023.”
She said it was “rubbish” to suggest no one had looked at the accounts as they were audited by professional auditors.
She added: “Back then, there was an issue when the police investigation started, money that had been fundraised for a second independence referendum, people started to say, ‘well, had that been used for election campaigning?’.
“I thought that was an unfair criticism and I was also frustrated at that point that the national executive committee, some people in the national executive committee, instead of doing the job properly of scrutinising the accounts in front of them, were leaking things to the press.
“Again, I’ve not been able to speak for the last three years that this police investigation has been under way because it’s been a live criminal case.
“So again, I’ve had to sit and listen to people say things about me, read things about me that are not true, and so now that I’m able to speak, wait for a lot more of it.”
Ms Sturgeon was Scotland’s first minister from 2014 to 2023 while Murrell served as the SNP chief executive from 2001 to 2023.
Murrell pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 to pay for a range of items, including a motorhome, various luxury goods and two cars.
Other purchases included designer kitchenware, multiple pairs of shoes, expensive pens and a £1,200 space telescope.
Ms Sturgeon said people have been “quick to point the finger of suspicion at me” and said she understood why people would ask how she could not have known about the crimes.
But she said she had been “completely cleared and exonerated” by police and that she had been lied to by her former husband.
She said: “It’s a deeply painful thing personally to come to terms with and I’m only in the foothills of coming to terms with the fact that the person I was married to for a long time is somebody I clearly didn’t know as well as I thought I did.
“Somebody who misled me, deceived me, lied to me, and put me in considerable peril.”
The former SNP leader added: “I think my picture has been on more front pages in Scotland this week than my former husband’s has and I don’t think that is right.
“It’s the age-old cry of when a man does something wrong, well, the woman must have known about it, somehow it’s her fault.
“And I get that to some extent. I get that people will look at the situation and say, ‘How could you not know?’. But there’s an assumption there that all of this stuff he was using SNP funds to buy, is stuff I was aware of.
“A lot of it I’ve read about for the first time in the papers.
“I was reading stuff on Monday that I’d never known before, items that I don’t know who they were bought for, I don’t know where they were, but I didn’t see them.
“And those things I was aware of, nothing made me think there were things he couldn’t have afforded.”
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