NICOLA Sturgeon has insisted that she did not shut down scrutiny of SNP accounts while party leader, saying the suggestion no one had looked at them in detail is “absolute rubbish”.
The former first minister further accused “some” on the SNP National Executive Committee (NEC) of having failed to do their “job properly of scrutinising the accounts”.
The comments came as Sturgeon spoke to journalist and author Francine Stock at the Hay Festival in Wales on Friday afternoon, just four days after her estranged husband Peter Murrell pleaded guilty to embezzling £400,000 from the SNP over 12 years.
Since the guilty plea, Sturgeon has faced questions about what she knew and when, as well as allegations of having shut down scrutiny of the SNP accounts while party leader.
Roger Mullin, the former SNP MP and NEC member, told The Times on Wednesday that after the police investigation was announced, "there was all sorts of manoeuvring at the time to prevent any questioning at all".
Former MP Douglas Chapman resigned as SNP treasurer in May 2021, saying Murrell had not given him oversight of the documents he needed to do his legal duties.
Another former MP, Joanna Cherry KC, also resigned days later, saying that a “number of factors have prevented me from fulfilling the mandate party members gave me to improve transparency and scrutiny”.
Two months prior, in March 2021, three senior SNP officials – Frank Ross, Allison Graham, and Cynthia Guthrie – had resigned from the party's Finance and Audit Committee over being denied sight of the accounts.
Speaking to the NEC that month, in a video later leaked to the press, Sturgeon said there “are no reasons for people to be concerned about the party’s finances, and all of us need to be careful about not suggesting that there is.”
At Hay Festival, Stock said that people had “started to raise questions about the accounts” and Sturgeon had “put that down pretty firmly”.
“No, I didn't,” the former SNP leader responded. “No, I didn’t.
“These are comments that have been reported from me back in 2021. There was no suggestion that there was an issue of embezzlement of SNP funds until about, well, to my knowledge, 2023.”
Stock suggested that nobody had properly checked the accounts, leading Sturgeon to say: “That is rubbish, absolute rubbish.
“The SNP accounts were audited by professional auditors. Party leaders don't sign accounts. I don't know what the position is in other parties, but in the SNP it's the party treasurer.
“So the process is the accounts are prepared, they go through auditors and professional accountants. The national treasurer signs them off, and they go to the SNP's National Executive Committee. That's the process and that happened.
“Back then there was an issue where the police investigation started, money that had been fundraised for a second independence referendum, people started to say, ‘well, had that been used for election campaigning’.
“I thought that was an unfair criticism, and I was also frustrated at that point that some people in the National Executive Committee, instead of doing the job properly of scrutinising the accounts in front of them, were leaking things to the press.”
She added: “I've not been able to speak for the last three years that this police investigation's been underway because it's been a live criminal case.
“So again, I've had to sit and listen to people say things about me, read things about me that are not true.
“And so now that I'm able to speak, wait for a lot more of it.”
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