GALE FARCE
Wealthy MSP who blasted SNP over onshore renewables has financial interest in turbines
A WEALTHY Tory MSP who regularly attacks onshore renewable energy was accused of hypocrisy last night after it emerged he has financial interests in a windfarm.
Alexander Burnett – who has served as Ruth Davidson’s energy spokesman after being elected in 2016 – previously claimed windfarms are “damaging Scotland’s countryside”.
But the Daily Record has established the Fordie Trust, of which Burnett is a trustee, erected two turbines near the village of Torphins in Royal Deeside, Aberdeenshire, after receiving planning permission in 2013.
Burnett’s extensive register of interest reveals he is a “trustee and potential beneficiary” of the trust, which owns property with a market value of between £3,700,001 and £3,800,000.
While the property generates an income of up to £80,000 a year, the Aberdeenshire West MSP is not expected to take any income from it this year.
The Record has learned a complaint to Scotland’s standards commissioner is set to be lodged by a constituent over Burnett’s failure to make clear his interest in wind energy when debating the issue at Holyrood.
But SNP MSP Gillian Martin said the revelations still raise questions about Burnett’s attitude to windfarms.
In November 2016, Burnett said: “The SNP’s obsession with onshore wind energy is damaging Scotland’s countryside and ruining local democracy.
“The SNP should be opening its mind to other sources like shale extraction, especially at a time when our coal-powered facilities are running out. But instead, it’s continuing on its bloody-minded path of having Scotland’s countryside plastered with unreliable and intermittent windfarms.” Martin said: “If Alexander Burnett is on record as being against wind turbines, while having an interest in an estate which uses them, he could very well be accused of being a hypocrite. Parliamentarians have to be completely transparent about their financial interests.”
Old Etonian Burnett, who receives a £61,778 MSP salary, was banned from asking written parliamentary questions at Holyrood for two weeks in 2017 after twice breaching the parliament’s code of conduct. MSPs sanctioned the 44-year-old for failing to register key business interests when asking about planning matters. All MSPs have to maintain a public register of their financial interests. Burnett’s is more than 1000 words long. The MSP, whose full name is Alexander James Amherst Burnett of Leys, receives a salary of £6273 a year plus private medical insurance worth around £1500 for spending up to a day a month on the North Banchory Company directorship. He also declared more than £10 million of shares in the same firm. But his most lucrative outside interest comes from owning property leasing and forestry firm AJA Burnett Estate.
He estimates he made between £160,000 and £170,000 in that role last year for a time commitment of up to a day a month.
The Tories said Burnett had not received any notice of the standards complaint and does not expect to receive any money from the Fordie Trust.
They added: “Mr Burnett has not been notified of this complaint. Obviously he will co-operate fully with any request from the commissioner’s office. It is surprising, however, this has gone to the press before any allegation has been put to Mr Burnett.”
The Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland said it had yet to receive a complaint.