Humza Yousaf dismisses claim he misled MSPs over renewables

First Minister Humza Yousaf says there is "no substance" in the allegation

Humza Yousaf has rejected calls to refer himself to a parliamentary watchdog over claims he misled parliament about Scotland's renewable energy capacity.

The first minister dismissed suggestions that civil servants retrospectively created statistics to justify an incorrect statement to MSPs.

Mr Yousaf said the matter was "closed".

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton described the response as "extremely disappointing".

He had urged the first minister to refer himself to the independent advisers of the ministerial code in September.

• First minister accused of false claim cover-up

• Read more stories on Scottish politics

At First Minister's Questions on 22 June, Mr Yousaf said that Scotland had "the majority of the renewables and natural resources" in the UK. The correct figure for 2022 was 26%, according to Scottish government figures.

After being challenged by Scottish Tory MSP Liam Kerr, the first minister wrote a letter on 29 August that stated he had intended to say "per capita" in his original answer.

Scottish government emails released under freedom of information to pro-Union organisation These Islands showed officials established on 22 June that Scotland had 26% of UK renewable capacity and 26% of generation in 2022.

It was not until 3 July that the "per capita" figure appeared in the email chain, much of which was redacted.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has accused the government of a cover-up

The updated figure put Scotland on 651.6GWh per 100,000 people, compared to 649.7GWh for the rest of the UK.

Mr Cole-Hamilton said the emails suggested the figures had been "reverse engineered" to "save embarrassment" for the first minister.

But in a written response to the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, Mr Yousaf said he had concluded there was "no substance" to the allegation.

He said the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser had confirmed that the per capita figure was a "fact", arguing it therefore could not be "fabricated by officials either retrospectively or otherwise".

'Statistical gymnastics'

"As such, there is no evidence to support the claim that I may have misled parliament and consequently been in breach of the Scottish ministerial code," he wrote.

"I believe that matters should only be referred to my independent advisers when there are sufficient grounds for a meaningful investigation, when their conclusions could usefully inform my deliberations.

"I do not think that asking them to review your complaint would be a good use of their time, nor do I believe it would reveal any meaningful new insights."

Mr Cole-Hamilton said the revision of the figure had been an "exercise in secrecy and statistical gymnastics" which was designed to "confuse and deflect".

He added: "To make matters worse, the Scottish government treated questions with a real lack of transparency, breaching freedom of information laws by refusing to release key details about how this dodgy statistic was dreamt up."

Mr Yousaf sent the letter to Mr Cole-Hamilton last month but the Scottish Liberal Democrats said they did not publish it at the time because members of the first minister's family were trapped in Gaza.