NICOLA Sturgeon is under pressure to release records of talks with two Chinese firms she signed an investment deal with after a company advisor contradicted her claim that no firm proposals were on the table.
Opposition parties accused the First Minister of misleading the Scottish public after Sir Richard Heygate, the UK advisor to the firms, said specific examples of development opportunities had been presented to an “enthusiastic” SNP leader.
Ms Sturgeon said on Wednesday “there are no actual proposals on the table at this stage” following the deal while the SNP described discussions as “at a very early stage”.
However, Sir Richard claimed talks had been ongoing for over a year, and said three areas had been identified for a possible £500m housing project that would see 5,000 properties build in Edinburgh, Falkirk and Ayrshire.
He said: “We’ve already identified land space in three areas of Scotland for 5,000 affordable homes, which we would like to tackle very quickly as a first initiative.
“She [Ms Sturgeon] was just absolutely positive right from the start. We presented a number of particular projects in affordable housing, clean energy, developing new industrial parks, new infrastructure and she went straight for the ones that are most important.
“She said ‘the two I want to focus on are affordable housing and clean energy, and I want to push those and I want to get them moving. I don’t want this to be another initiative which is just going to be talked about and take forever. I want to get something moving this year.’”
Ms Sturgeon has been under pressure over the memorandum of understanding, which opens the door to £10bn of investment, after its existence came to light in China and was not announced by the Scottish Government.
She faced further scrutiny after it emerged one of the firms she had signed up with - China Railway No. 3 Engineering Group Co., Ltd, (CR3) - is owned by a company blacklisted by the Norwegian oil fund as a result of corruption links.
Willie Rennie, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, called for the publication of all records of discussions between the First Minister, her government, CR3 and the second firm, Sinofortone.
He said: “We need transparency because there is a clear conflict between what was said by Nicola Sturgeon and the representative of the Chinese companies.
“Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that this was only the start of the discussions was contradicted by the Chinese representative who made it clear that there had been extensive discussions including which projects should proceed this year.”
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s finance spokeswoman, said: “Nicola Sturgeon has simply not been telling the truth and that is unacceptable. Nicola Sturgeon has misled Scots on this deal.”
But a spokeswoman for the SNP insisted no list of specific projects was on the table and no investment agreed.
She added: “Sinofortone may have a range of high level ideas for investment in private sector projects, as any investor would, but there are no specific projects under discussion with the Scottish Government.
“In fact we have published the Memorandum of Understanding, which shows quite clearly, that engagement is at a very preliminary stage.”
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