SNP donor hotel chain shamed by low wages

A SCOTS hotel company linked to an SNP donor has been named and shamed for paying workers below the minimum wage.

Macdonald Hotels & Resorts appeared on a blacklist of nearly 200 employers issued by the UK Government yesterday.

Its parent company’s jointowner Donald Macdonald has previously gifted £30,000 to the SNP and was later able to call upon the counsel of five Nationalist ministers during an £ 0million planning application to expand the group’s resort in Aviemore, Inverness-shire, sparking claims of ‘cronyism’.

The venture later crashed, owing the taxpayer millions of pounds – although Mr Macdonald then created another business that was able to shed the debts and buy back the assets.

Now the latest list compiled by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

‘Letting workers down this way’

shows that the hotel chain has been fined for serially underpaying its own staff. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs found that the company underpaid six workers by a total of £2,123.

Last night, the SNP was under pressure to condemn MHR’s actions. LibDem MSP Mike Rumbles said: ‘They need to make clear to their donor that letting workers down in this way is absolutely unacceptable. Mr Macdonald had enough money to give tens of thousands of pounds to the SNP.’

An SNP spokesman responded: ‘Mr Macdonald gave this donation the best part of ten years ago and it was as an individual rather than through the business.’

The UK Government list of minimum-wage transgressors featured 19 companies who had paid their workers below the threshold, now £7.20 an hour for those aged 25 or over.

Of these, 22 were north of the Border, owing 93 employees more than £43,600. They included Bay Newsagents in Wemyss Bay, Renfrewshire, which underpaid three staff by £12,52 and Glasgow-based employment agency Topstaff, which short-changed 20 people by £3,355.