Fergus Ewing has warned the Scottish Government against using new Scottish bonds to fund the dualling of the A9.

Writing in the Herald on Sunday, the former Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy said he feared that if the “kilt” bonds failed then the work on the road would also fail.

Instead, the Inverness and Nairn MSP said ministers should take money from the capital budget to pay for the major project.

READ Fergus Ewing's column in full: Fergus Ewing calls on Scottish Government to deliver on A9

Humza Yousaf announced the plan to “go directly to the international bond market for the first time” at the SNP conference earlier this month.

He said it would be used to help “fund vital infrastructure.”

The SNP leader said he hoped to issue Scotland’s first-ever bond before the end of the current parliamentary term in 2026.

Holyrood cannot exceed its £450 million annual borrowing limit and has a ceiling of £3 billion in total, roughly the same as a 2020 estimated cost of completing the road.

The SNP first promised to dual the A9 when they were elected to government in 2007.

In 2011, they set out plans to widen around 80 miles of single-carriageway in 11 sections along the road.

However, only 11 miles in two sections have been dualled in the last 12 years.

Last year 13 people lost their lives on the A9, of those 12 were on single-carriageway sections.

A target date of 2025 was recently shelved, and an update is due in parliament in the coming weeks.

READ MORE: Yousaf freezes council tax to help with cost-of-living crisis

In his column, Mr Ewing says that the Scottish Government must provide details on funding and timelines in the Autumn Statement.

He said four of the remaining nine single-carriageway are shovel-ready and just need to go into procurement.

He adds that the delay may leave people to “infer that the Scottish Government have been dragging their feet, deliberately delaying progress whilst at the same time pledging total commitment to the completion of the project."

Mr Ewing writes: “My current fear and suspicion is the Scottish Government in their Autumn Statement fail to deliver in the way I have called for.

“My worry is that instead in their proposed autumn statement - which incidentally, I do not expect until at least early in December - they make a vague promise to use for the purposes of the funding the rest of the project, the new embryonic so-called ‘kilt’ bonds, mooted by the FM at the Conference in Aberdeen .

“Furthermore, I am concerned that they will give no clear dates for when there will be constructed each of the four sections which have been ready to go to procurement for around the past two years; and finally, that they fail to give clarity about how precisely each of the remaining sections will be funded and will be procured.

“Of course, the danger is that if the ‘kilt’ bonds fail to materialise, as some already predict, then the A9 dualling project may fail with them.”