Swinney on the spot: A solemn FM brings his serious face to MSP grilling

It had been a polite enough session, but then, in the dying minutes, it was Willie Rennie’s turn. “You should have serious concerns about Mr Flynn’s competence,” he told the first minister. 

John Swinney had turned up for the second time in as many weeks to answer questions from the Conveners Group, and he had brought with him his most solemn demeanour. Chamber-style grandstanding was off the agenda with this group, even if he had clashed with some of them at backbench FMQs just a day earlier.  

That’s not to say there were no friendly faces in the room – Patrick Harvie, appearing for the Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee – even gave Swinney the chance to talk about the Sewel Convention and the Cardiff Agreement. 

But now, like a parent called to the headteacher’s office to answer for their unruly child, Swinney found himself defending transport secretary Flynn under Rennie’s questioning. 

The convener of the Transport Committee hasn’t forgiven or forgotten when Flynn turned up to the panel without, apparently, doing his homework. Inflammable gas emissions on a ferry? Hadn’t heard about it. And as is so often the case with distracted pupils, a device was to blame – Flynn had been FaceTiming his kids. 

One month on and a dissatisfied Rennie was drumming his palm against the desk in frustration. “Confidence in ministers is essential,” he told the first minister. “We need to know that ministers are on it, they're open, they're transparent, they're acting timely. And I'm afraid you've got to recognise that Mr Flynn has not been any of those things.” 

He wasn’t on top of island flights and waited too long to say that furlough would not be paid to Alexander Dennis workers, Rennie said.  

John Swinney had never heard anything like it.  

“I don’t accept that,” he told the dominie. Flynn has “addressed the issues that are put to him”, the FM said, telling the panel: “I will respectfully disagree with Mr Rennie because I'm confident that my ministers, including Mr Flynn, are across their responsibilities.” 

That presumably includes Ivan McKee, who told the Public Sector Reform Committee that there was “a process” in place to manage mandarins who found their roles deleted, despite the government’s policy against compulsory redundancies. Could the FM clarify that, Bob Doris, convenver of that particular committee, wondered.  

“The government remains committed to the no compulsory redundancy policy and proposes no changes to it,” Swinney said. Well, should there be a review of the process, if not the policy? “I think what we've got to do in all of this exercise, as we go through a period of change, is that we have to do that in an open and consultative fashion with the workforce,” said Swinney, “and that's been the style and the approach of this government since 2007, and that's what we'll carry on in the period to come.” 

An open and consultative fashion? Public Audit Committee convener Neil Bibby had a question in that vein. “When was the last time you spoke with Sanjeev Gupta?” he asked of the head of the troubled GFG Alliance, which was a recipient of Scottish Government support. Swinney would have to check, but it was “certainly not” since he’d been first minister. 

“Over the weekend it emerged that the £586m taxpayer guarantee for the Lochaber smelter is directly tied to an offshore entity in Jersey. Did you or your officials authorise the transfer of a taxpayer backed guarantee to a Jersey tax haven?”  

It was another poser. “I would have to check that issue, but certainly, I would think that unlikely,” Swinney said. The government had been faced with the “very likely demise” of the smelter and GFG’s Dalziel steelworks, he said.  

Bibby wanted to know when the government’s £7m loan would be repaid, and if Swinney regretted that back-to-back deals had been done with Gupta’s business. There was “sensitivity” around the first question, Swinney said. And though he didn’t say it, there was perhaps discomfort over the second. “In relation to the initial intervention to safeguard employment, no, because I think we would have experienced a significant loss of employment had we not intervened,” the first minister said.  

“There are obviously a number of issues in relation to the activities of the GFG group which are the subject of external scrutiny beyond the Scottish Government, but it clearly has implications for the Scottish Government, and we are addressing that situation with the type of focus that Mr Bibby would expect.”