Bill's Comment Page

Scottish Parliament building over-spend: the truth begins to emerge

The inquiry into the spiralling cost of building the new Scottish Parliament Building at Holyrood (the Holyrood Inquiry) began yesterday.

This was set up by Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell in the wake of the announcement shortly before that the cost had spiralled to £375m , an announcement made just after the Scottish parliamentary elections, when it was of course too late for the electorate to punish those responsible. Now, and as any fool could have predicted, the cost has further escalated to more than £400m, and the building is not now due to be completed until after the end of this year's parliamentary session, when the previous best estimate (just before the Scottish Parliament elections) was that it would be ready by November 2003. Nobody, and certainly not me, believed that target and I'm not sure if I believe the latest either.

Yesterday Sam Galbraith, a retired labour MSP and MP of long standing, gave his evidence to the inquiry. Amongst other statements, Mr Galbraith said the following:

The desire for 'new', not a hand-me-down "I didn't want a second-hand building for a new Scottish parliament," he told the inquiry.

He worried that the budget of £50m (actually the Scotland Bill, the propsal for the Scotland Act which set up the Scottish Parliament, mentioned a figure of £40m!!) would have been "disappointing" and had feared that the late Mr Dewar would have favoured the "cheap" alternative. This seems to indicate that the figure of £40m (or shall we say, just between friends, £50m - what's another £10m!!), was never intended to be taken seriously. Was it included only to pull the wool over the eyes of the Scottish people prior to the referendum on Scottish devolution?

The Labour-run Scottish Executive (of which Mr Galbraith was a part until his retirement) are no doubt patriotic Scots who love their country, but it is clear they have no idea how to manage a commercial project. The arrogant comments of Sam Galbraith yesterday, demanding like a small child not to have a “second-hand building” and worried that the late Mr Dewar was going to favour a “cheap” alternative, illustrate perfectly the unreconstructed socialist desire to make free with other people’s (the taxpayer’s) money; I expect Mr Galbraith is considerably more careful when dealing with his own personal expenditure than he seems to have been in stewarding the spending of ‘mine’!