Brown issues Holyrood apology over Chinese investment ‘shambles’

The Scottish Government has been forced to apologise to MSPS over its handling of a controversial proposed £10 billion Chinese investment package.

Economy secretary Keith Brown also pledged that lessons would be learned a year after the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Scottish Government and two state-backed Chinese firms.

“I take full responsibility for the handling of this MOU,” Mr Brown told MSPS yesterday.

“I am sorry for the issues that have arisen from it. I can 0 Keith Brown has promised lessons will be learned assure parliament that we have and will learn lessons from the experience.”

The apology saved the government from a Holyrood defeat last night. The agreement with Sinofortone and China Railway No3 Engineering Group (CR3) came under intense scrutiny from opposition parties, who accused the government of secrecy. It also emerged CR3’S parent firm has been singled out by Amnesty International for humanrights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo and faced allegations of corruption by the Norwegian Oil Fund.

Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said the apology had taken too long to deliver.

He added: “I welcome the first real acknowledgement from the cabinet secretary that this was badly handled but we now need to properly see how we avoid this shambles happening again.”