Highlands and Islands MSP Jamie Halcro Johnston has backed an all-party bid to end the SNP’s privileged access to sensitive economic data ahead of other political parties.
Speaking in the chamber of the Scottish Parliament today (Thursday 19th September), Mr Halcro Johnston quoted the chair of the UK Statistic’s Authority who called equality of access a “central principle of good statistical practice”.
The debate followed discussions at the parliament’s Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee during which MSPs of several opposition parties criticised the SNP’s use of its privileged access to the statistics for party political purposes.
Speaking after the debate Mr Halcro Johnston said: “It is quite clear that the SNP Government has no interest in a level playing field when it comes to debating the Scottish economy.
“And it’s no wonder, given their failure after 12 years in government, to deliver for the Scottish people.
“Having privileged pre-release access is all about allowing themselves to spin a story about the data in advance, and close down effective scrutiny of their record and their repeated policy failures.
“It’s high time this practice ended and we operated as we do in the rest of the United Kingdom with fair access to government economic data for everyone.”
