The claim by Patrick Harvie, convener of the Scottish Parliament’s transport committee, came as business organisations and Labour politicians rounded on Mr Swinney in the wake of The Herald’s revelation that Network Rail had offered to use its own borrowing powers to reinstate the project.
Mr Harvie, the Green Party MSP for Glasgow, pointed to a session of the committee on November 3 last year in which Mr Swinney said he had “certainly considered” using Network Rail borrowing to fund Garl, after cancelling the £210 million project due to a shortage in the Government’s capital budget.
However, the Finance Secretary did not mention that the head of Network Rail, Iain Coucher, had made an approach to him suggesting borrowing against the company’s Regulated Asset Base.
“Ministers don’t swear an oath when they come to Parliamentary committees, but the expectation should be the same -- they should tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” Mr Harvie said.
“I’ve no doubt that John Swinney fulfilled two of the three, but the whole truth would also include the information that Network Rail had made this approach. This is a serious omission, given the controversy of the Garl decision and Mr Swinney’s insistence that the objection to RAB funding was that other projects Network Rail was funding would come under threat.”
Labour’s shadow finance Secretary, Andy Kerr, accused Mr Swinney of misleading the public. He said: “For months John Swinney called on Labour to identify alternative funding for Garl after he had removed it from the budget. We have consistently maintained that Network Rail was one potential source of funding for this vital economic project. Now we are astonished to discover that the SNP rejected approaches by Network Rail around the time Garl was cancelled.”
He added: “This was an act of betrayal and economic vandalism. John Swinney must now come to the Parliament and make an emergency statement.”
However, Mr Swinney denied misleading either the committee or the public. “My comments in the official report of the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee show that when asked in committee if I had considered any alternative sources or type of finance to keep the project going, I replied that I had indeed considered the possibility of the project being taken forward through inclusion in the regulated asset base of Network Rail,” he said.
“I also added that at this stage of the project the RAB approach would have added significant delay and complication to delivery and the outcome would not be certain. This was why this approach was not pursued in respect of Garl.”
The Scottish Chambers of Commerce also claimed that alternative funding options for Garl had been closed down without proper discussion. Garry Clark, the organisation’s head of policy, said: “Since the decision to cancel Garl was made, we have advocated using private funding options or using Network Rail borrowing powers in order to see it reinstated. We have been told at every stage that those weren’t options. It’s unfortunate, to say the least.”
A number of major rail infrastructure projects have recently been funded through Network Rail borrowing or are expected to use it, including a £1 billion package of electrification and upgrade to track in the central belt -- the Edinburgh-Glasgow Improvement Programme.
