THE Scottish Tories’ transport chief was last night branded a hypocrite for regularly slating ScotRail — but rarely taking a train.
Graham Simpson has racked up £16,000 in car expenses since 2016.
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Scottish Tory transport boss Graham Simpson MSP shunned traveling by train to rack up car expenses of £16,000
Yet the MSP has been a prominent critic of the SNP over rail chaos — and even slammed Transport Minister Jenny Gilruth for being driven around in a limo rather than traveling by train.
Figures show the Tory spokesman on the issue, who commutes from the west of Scotland to Holyrood, has not claimed a penny on rail expenses in the last two years.
From 2016-17 to 2019-20 he clawed back just £289.15 in train fares — but £16,128.40 on road travel.
The Nats said the expenses records showed “the hypocrisy of the Tories’ great rail crusader” because he “almost never travels by train”.
Mr Simpson has attacked Ms Gilruth for being chauffeur-driven during periods of disruption at ScotRail, which was nationalized in April.
SNP East Lothian MSP Paul McLennan said he commutes to Holyrood by train and added: “The hypocrisy of the Tories knows no bounds.
“Graham Simpson should be ashamed to spend his days talking down a service he doesn’t even use.”
Mr Simpson said: “This is a desperate attempt by the SNP to deflect from their shocking mismanagement of Scotland’s railways with skeleton timetables and full-blown strikes.”
Elsewhere, officials got “bogged down” discussing toilet brushes when awarding a doomed ferries deal, it was claimed.
Documents relating to the fiasco show the loo cleaners featured in a “quick” procurement review carried out in 2018.
The report outlines a visit to Ferguson Marine, which is still building two vessels for the state-owned operator Caledonian MacBrayne.
Emails between the Scottish Government procurement directorate and Kevin Hobbs, chief executive of Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, show the review team “did not have the time or technical expertise to examine much of this in any detail”.
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