Top hotels, lunches and a photo shoot... how new MSPs will be eased into their jobs
Taxpayers will pick up the £20,000 tab for ‘Freshers Week’
ALL newly-elected MSPs are to be treated by the taxpayer to a four-day celebration of their election victory in a ‘ Freshers Week for politicians’ next May.
The Scottish parliament will pay for four nights in an upmarket Edinburgh hotel for the successful Holyrood election candidates.
It will also wine and dine them – and their partners – at lavish events, just days after the election votes are counted.
The celebrations will include a lunch in the parliament’s exclusive members-only restaurant, an evening reception to which all new MSPs and their wives, husbands or partners are invited, and a ‘group photograph’ providing a memento of their election victory.
Holyrood chiefs claim the series of social events is designed to help newly-elected politicians ‘establish contacts across party lines’ and ‘build networks with other members and parliamentary officials’. But the
‘High-end junketing slaps poor people in the face’
wining and dining will come at a cost of nearly £20,000 to the public purse, sparking claims that money is being wasted on a ‘junket’ akin to a university Freshers Week.
Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone said: ‘While it may be daunting for new MSPs walking through the doors of Holyrood for the first time, I don’t think a Freshers Week for politicians is necessary.
‘They have five years to get to know each other, and many will be familiar enough with Scotland’s political bubble in any case. It simply cannot be compared to an 18-year-old leaving home for the first time going into a city of strangers.’
Holyrood officials estimate around 30 new members will be elected next year and have set aside a budget of £15,000 for the hotel accommodation – an average of £125 a night per MSP – which is enough to book a fourstar hotel such as the nearby Macdonald Holyrood, where politicians traditionally stay during the parliamentary week.
The evening reception is expected to cost £2,000 – enough for 105 bottles of the parliament’s wine or around 570 pints of beer – while the lunch is expected to cost £870, or around £28 per head.
A report approved by the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body, headed by Presiding Officer Patricia Marwick, outlines the full programme running from Monday, May 9, to Thursday, May 12, when the new MSPs will be sworn in and will officially start their new jobs.
Eben Wilson, director of the Taxpayer-Scotland pressure group, said: ‘A short and practical induction would probably be useful for an MSP but to have four days of expensive junketing like a posh person’s Freshers Week is really out of order when taxpayers are paying for it. ‘This culture of top-end junketing is quite wrong in today’s climate and slaps poor people in the face.Is this really what anti-austerity means to a politician?’ A Holy rood spokesman said: ‘One of the parliament’s roles is to provide information and support to new MSPs and the threeday orientation programme will provide an introduction to parliamentary process and procedures. This process, an approach that has been used at Westminster, will assist MSPs in performing the role to which they have been elected.’