Liberal Democrat Shadow Rural Affairs Secretary Mike Rumbles MSP slammed the Convener of a Scottish Parliament committee and the Scottish Government’s Environment Minister for their handling of the Aviemore Highland Resort planning application.

Speaking during a debate on a report into flooding carried out by the Parliament’s Rural Affairs & Environment Committee, Mr Rumbles condemned the Committee’s Convener, Roseanna Cunningham, for abusing her position. Ms Cunningham prevented members from questioning SNP Environment Minister Mike Russell on this issue.

Commenting after the debate, Mr Rumbles said:

“The Rural Affairs Committee had a mandate to investigate issues surrounding flooding in Scotland. This is why I wanted to ask officials from SEPA about any ministerial intervention into the planning application at the Aviemore Highland Resort.

“Unfortunately the convener prevented me and other committee members from pursuing this line of questioning in a blatant attempt to protect her ministerial colleague Mike Russell.

“When giving evidence to the Committee, Mr Russell claimed that he had never intervened in a planning process. This is clearly wrong, as the First Minister is on record confirming that he had spoken to Mr Russell about the Aviemore application and that Mr Russell had subsequently spoken to SEPA, who then withdrew their objection to the planning application. FOI evidence seen by the Local Government Committee revealed real anger within SEPA over the pressure they felt they were under from ministers.

“Due to the failure of the Convener to allow committee members to do our job and thoroughly question ministers and SEPA officials, this report on flooding has been fundamentally undermined.”