The leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats has criticised the organisers of an environmental brainstorming event for snubbing opposition parties.
Only SNP politicians received invitations to the Scottish Natural Heritage event in Dundee, which is about promoting biodiversity and increasing “collaborative working” across Tayside and North-East Fife.
SNH, which aims to raise the profile of Scotland’s natural charms, is funded by the Scottish Government. It has apologised and called it an “innocent oversight”.
Willie Rennie, who leads the Liberal Democrats in Scotland and is also the MSP for North-East Fife, said the organisation left itself exposed to accusations of political bias.
“The SNP may like to think they control everything but there are other political voices on Tayside,” he said. “Scottish Natural Heritage needs to be actively seeking the views of political and non-political voices and not just those of the SNP.
“I am not sure how SNH has got into such a tangle for this exclusive event but they need to sort it promptly so they don’t get accused of political bias.”
While Labour-run Fife Council received an invitation, the only ones to parties were to four SNP groups in Dundee, Perthshire and Angus.
The event, called “Biodiversity in Tayside – the big ideas”, is being held at Discovery Point next week and is about increasing “collaborative working”.
The invitation said: “Our aim is to create a forum for open and frank discussion on how we might do more collaborative working to deliver biodiversity gains for Scotland, in a way that meets the differing objectives of our organisations and helps us reach some harder audiences.”
A spokesman for SNH said: “This was an innocent oversight and we have now contacted and apologised to Willie Rennie, who will be more than welcome at the event. This reception is to bring together stakeholders with an interest in the environment of Dundee and its surrounds.
“As well as MSPs, invitees include voluntary environmental groups, land managers and other government agencies. In putting together the invite list we focused on Tayside and used the Scottish Parliament website for information on MSPs who represent Tayside. However, we inadvertently did not include North-East Fife interests.”