Fergus Ewing wants to call Nicola Sturgeon to answer questions at the A9 inquiry

The SNP’s headaches continue to grow as MSP Fergus Ewing has revealed he will urge the inquiry into what went wrong with the dualling of the A9 to call Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to give evidence.

It comes after former MSP Alex Neil said his successors as cabinet secretary for infrastructure in 2012 – including Ms Sturgeon – must have “taken their foot off the accelerator.”

Ms Sturgeon was also First Minister from 2014 until 2023 in a period that saw just two of the 11 sections of the A9 dualling programme completed – a key period as the committee struggles to discover what happened.

During Mr Neil’s testimony he rubbished Transport Scotland claims that the 2025 deadline was aspirational pointing out it was Transport Scotland which came up with it in the first place.

And when asked about what went wrong and why so very little progress has been made, Mr Neil said he believes that his successors, like Ms Sturgeon, must have “taken their foot off the accelerator.”

Now Mr Ewing says: "Obviously I shall now urge the committee that we must obtain and hear evidence from Nicola and all the other Cabinet Secretaries who had, after she became First Minister, responsibility for the delivery of the infrastructure plans including the A9 and A96.

"I shall also argue, following up Alex Neil’s recommendation, that the committee must get access to ALL the Scottish Government papers including advice to Ministers from their officials and Transport Scotland. And that must include some documents that have been withheld from Freedom of Information requests."

What that and Ms Sturgeon’s testimony reveals could cause even more problems for the SNP as criticism of the Scottish Government seems to grow by the day.

See Mr Ewing’s full column in tomorrow's Inverness Courier or click here from 7am onwards.

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