Any contract signed with the China Rail Group CR3 will tarnish Scotland’s human rights record. So says Willie Rennie following the refusal of the First Minister to rule out such a contract with the controversial company.
Watch their exchange at First Minister’s Questions here:
Nicola’s bad-tempered response shows her defensiveness on this issue.
This week saw revelations in response to Parliamentary Questions by Willie and Freedom of Information requests that government officials tried on multiple occasions to remove reference to the China Railway Group from documents around the Memorandum of Understanding but the First Minister still signed the final agreement with them.
The FOI releases include a letter from the First Minister expressing “delight” that the specific projects presented had been well-received by the Chinese investors. This contradicts the Government’s assertion that specific projects were not on the table.
Answers to PQs from Willie show that the Scottish Government had not made any checks to find out that the China Railway Group had been blacklisted by the Norwegian state pension fund, or investigate the human rights concerns expressed by Amnesty International about their work in Africa.
And to compound the ill-advisedness of this process, apparently Brian Souter, SNP donor and campaigner against LGBT rights, had been mentioned as a potential investor.
It has now emerged that Sir Brian Souter, a high-profile SNP supporter and donor, was discussed as a possible investor in a deal potentially worth over £10bn from an early stage.
Willie says that the First Minister needs to decide whether to drop China Rail Group CR3 or drop Scottish values on human rights.
I was astonished that the SNP Government hadn’t even carried a basic google search on the China Rail Group CR3 before the First Minister signed an agreement with them. But I was disgusted that when she was made aware of the problems with this company that she refused to shred the document.
Either she is too proud that to admit she got this wrong or she is seriously considering using them. If any Scottish Government contracts are awarded to the China Rail Group CR3 it will cause immense damage to Scotland’s human rights record.
Something is wrong if Scotland so glibly disregards the views of Amnesty International and the Norwegian Oil Fund on human rights and corruption.
It matters that there are serious allegations that this company evicted hundreds of people from their homes in Africa. It also matters that it has been blacklisted because of the risk of gross corruption.
The FM has to decide. Will she drop the Chinese company or will she drop Scottish values on human rights. She can’t have both.
The Scottish Government must sever its links with the China Rail Group CR3.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Ed Davey on working with Greens after Zionism conference motion
Oh! What a Lovely War: An interview with Murray Melvin
Green leader doubles down on Zionism is racism policy
Chris Williams
Andrew Moore
Steph
David Evans
Chloe
7 Comments
I like that (unlike in the Commons) questions are heard with polite silence (more or less).
I thought that Sturgeon’s performance was tetchy and schoolyard-ish.
Living in the south of England I don’t generally get to see the Scottish Parliament so this was very interesting.
Excellent probing by Willie – and Ms Sturgeon clearly very cross and defensive and more to the point – vulnerable on this issue!
All these programmes are on FreeSat.
Not sure that Nichola Sturgeon looked vulnerable, I thought she put Rennie in his place with ease. I’m not a lover of the SNP, but she’s by far the best party leader in the UK.
Willie Rennie has obviously put on record his distaste at Vince Cables Trade delegation to China in 2014. He has hasn’t he?????
‘Living in the south of England I don’t generally get to see the Scottish Parliament so this was very interesting.’
BBC Pariament channel provide some coverage of Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh parliamnet/assemblies at weekends.
Nicola’s problem – probably learnt from Salmond – is that she has a tendency when she doesn’t know or can’t answer the question being asked to go after the questioner – @malc that’s why she looked vulnerable. The first answer was a non-answer, the second started by evading the question and then tried to answer but failed.