‘Salmond didn’t want a care kids abuse inquiry’
Deputy tells of divide in his old boss’s Cabinet
aLEX Salmond and some of his senior ministers were against holding an inquiry into the abuse of children in care, John Swinney has claimed.
The Deputy First Minister told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry his old boss’s Cabinet was divided on the issue in 2014.
He said the inquiry was authorised “after the change of First Minister had taken place”.
James Peoples QC, senior counsel to the inquiry, said minister Mike Russell told him “influential figures, including Alex Salmond, Kenny MacAskill and the then lord advocate Frank Mulholland were not persuaded” of the need for an inquiry. Swinney agreed, saying: “In 2014, there was a difference of views in Cabinet in the summer of 2014 if there should be an inquiry.”
Asked about the divide, Swinney said: “One argument was that the inquiry would not address the issues and would not deliver the outcomes survivors hoped for.
“Mike Russell had engaged heavily with survivors and his view was we had to confront this issue as a country, to do justice for survivors to enable them to have their exper i ences documented, understood and reflected on, and for the state to accept responsibility for what happened to them. I supported him in that view in Cabinet.”
Swinney also said the issue of cost should not have ruled out the inquiry because there was a “hidden money tree” of £1.6billion that had not been spent when he took over as finance secretary.
The latest phase of the inquiry, heard before judge Lady Smith, is investigating why calls between August 2002 and December 2014 for it to be held were resisted by ministers.
The current inquiry was set up in October 2015.
It is investigating abuse of children in care in Scotland or where their care was arranged in Scotland. The inquiry continues.