Incompetent and wasteful SNP ministers to HAND BACK £450million of EU money after failing to spend it

SNP ministers are to hand back to Brussels £450million of EU money earmarked for economic and anti-poverty targets. The Nats have been accused of “negligence on a remarkable scale”.

According to a bombshell report in the Sunday Times, Scotland is expected to return 28% of the European structural and investment funding it received in the past six years having failed to allocate the cash. By comparison, Wales is on course to return 9% of its money, England 6% and Northern Ireland 2%.

Schemes to boost employment, education, training and social inclusion as well as support for small and medium-sized businesses are among the areas to lose out on the Euro bonanza. The programme closes this month which means the funding is almost certain to go unspent and be lost.

Scotland has already returned €199 million from the funding pot, according to EU data, and has now failed to spend another €331m that formed part of the six-year programme. Together they add up to almost £451m at current exchange rates.

READ MORE: Angus Robertson begged diplomat to show Scexit EU paper to German Government minister

Political opponents were staggered at the wastefulness of the SNP, whose ministers have railed against Westminster cuts as “nothing short of a betrayal of public services across the UK”.

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, said: “This is waste and negligence on an unforgivable scale. The SNP have poured half a billion pounds down the drain. Their new slogan should be ‘squander for Scotland’. This funding could have been spent on vital infrastructure across Scotland, yet SNP incompetence has lost it for good.”

And Dame Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, blamed the Scottish Government’s “incompetence” for missing out on the EU money. “Our NHS is in crisis, child poverty is stubbornly high, and economic growth is sluggish — that the SNP government is handing back half a billion pounds of funding while Scots face crumbling public services and infrastructure is a dereliction of duty and negligence on a remarkable scale,” she said.

“Vital projects across Scotland are being left high and dry while the SNP allows vital funding to slip away. Scots should not pay the price of SNP incompetence.”

The funding scheme, which was replaced by the UK shared prosperity fund after Brexit, ran from 2014 until 2020 but money could still be allocated until the end of June 2024.

Scotland has been suspended from applying for the funding on five occasions, with officials citing “deficiencies” and “irregularities” in the paperwork. By contrast, England’s schemes have been praised as “extremely successful” with Wales hailed as “exemplary”.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “These figures do not reflect the totality of spending to date from the 2014-20 European structural funds programmes. Final expenditure figures will not be known until 2025, when the programmes formally close.”

Never miss the latest top headlines from the Scottish Daily Express. Sign up to our daily newsletter here.