AN UNELECTED Tory donor has said he is "proud" to have been made a peer and a minister in the Scotland Office.
Malcolm Offord, now Lord Offord of Garvel, was speaking to MPs at the Scottish Affairs Committee this afternoon when he defended his appointment.
Lord Offord also defended his large donations to the Conservative party when challenged by the SNP.
The peer was asked by the committee chairman Pete Wishart if he was not 'embarrassed' about being made a junior minister, having mounted a failed election bid to Holyrood in May.
The SNP MP said: "Is there not a slight bit of embarrassment given that you stood for democratic election only a few months ago and you were unsuccessful?
"All of a sudden you find yourself ennobled, put into one of the most absurd legislatures in the world with 800-or-so members, and you're now a member of government...How do you feel about that?"
Lord Offord responded that it was a "great honor" and added: "I'm pleased to be selected, if not elected, because none of the Lords, as you know, are elected."
He continued: "I don't see there's any anomaly there whatsoever. It's a great honor and privilege for me to be involved.
"And all government departments have a Lords minister.
"There is a Lords Minister required to help take legislation through Parliament and it seems to be only right that the Scotland Office has the same ability."
Lord Offord, an Edinburgh financier, ran the pro-Union No Borders campaign in 2014 during the independence referendum.
He has also donated more than £135,000 to the Conservative Party since 2007, and gave £2,500 to MP Michael Gove in 2019.
When challenged on whether his donations had any connection to his appointment, the peer said: "It's a matter of record that I have given donations to the Conservative party over 15 years when I was not politically active. That's on the record, that's completely transparent. And I'm proud to have done that.
"I have a personal view that political parties should not be state funded, should not be taxpayer funded.
"I believe they should stand and fall on their own merits. The Labour Party is funded largely by trade unions, the Conservative party's largely funded by individuals and the SNP is funded by crowdfunding."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel