Audit Scotland has been asked to investigate claims that Scotland missed out on billions of pounds from the ScotWind offshore leasing round.
The Herald is reporting that Former SNP minister Fergus Ewing has written to Auditor General Stephen Boyle calling for “a full independent review” of how Crown Estate Scotland and ministers managed the 2021 auction.
In his letter, seen by The Herald, Mr Ewing said seabed rights “appear to have been sold off for a very small fraction of their likely true value” and noted that “there appears not to have been, since the auction in 2021, any detailed independent and thorough investigation into these allegations”.
The ScotWind round raised £755million by granting 20 offshore wind developers rights to explore and develop up to 30 gigawatts of capacity in Scottish waters.
At the time, then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described the scale of the projects as “truly historic”.
However, a new report by think tank Future Economy Scotland — supported by a recent column in The Herald by former Labour energy minister Brian Wilson — argues that the auction could have raised between £3.5billion and £28billion.