Mordaunt jokes about Tories being ‘a bunch of rotters’ after SNP criticism

SNP MP Deirdre Brock had accused the Commons Leader of being anti-Scottish.

Penny Mordaunt said an SNP MP was wrongly equating criticism of the party’s performance with criticism of Scotland itself (PA) (PA Wire)

Penny Mordaunt has joked about the Tories being “a bunch of rotters” after an SNP MP accused her party of being “untroubled by poverty”.

SNP MP Deirdre Brock also accused Ms Mordaunt of being anti-Scottish.

The Commons Leader said Ms Brock was equating her criticisms of the SNP’s performance with criticism of Scotland itself.

Ms Mordaunt added that the SNP had “turned maladministration into an art form”.

Speaking in the Commons during business questions on Thursday, Ms Brock said: “I know that the leader is furiously busy with all her minister for clickbait responsibilities, those anti-Scottish articles and sneering videos don’t write themselves.

“But as her Government grinds punch-drunk and exhausted to an election, shouldn’t we debate some of the key legacies of the last 14 years of Tory rule?

If we Conservatives dislike Scotland so much... why on Earth would we strive so hard to keep it part of the union of the United Kingdom?

Penny Mordaunt

“Where to start? There are still these scandalously unresolved scandals like infected blood, Waspi women and Post Office Horizon, to name a very few.

“The Tories opposite seem genuinely untroubled by poverty in the UK, my colleagues and I have asked them many times about it and their eyes just glaze over. Comfortable, I guess, with the choices they’ve made, as the PM has said.”

Ms Mordaunt replied: “Well, what a bunch of rotters we are and our anti-Scottish articles.

“It appears that the honourable lady is planning to follow in the footsteps of many a great antipodean election guru by this brilliant new strategy to equate the criticisms of the SNP’s performance with criticism of Scotland itself.

“The latter is a landmass of approximately 30,000 square miles, populated by brilliant, creative, stoic people. The former is a ramshackle, separatist movement, full of people who have turned maladministration into an art form.

“There is just one tiny flaw in this new political tactic from the SNP – if we Conservatives dislike Scotland so much, for some reason the honourable lady never gets round to explaining – why on Earth would we strive so hard to keep it part of the union of the United Kingdom?”

Elsewhere in the debate, SNP MP Patricia Gibson called on Ms Mordaunt to correct figures she had used to suggest that Scottish taxpayers face higher rates than those in England.

The North Ayrshire MP said: “In response to me on January 11, the Leader of the House told this House that people in England pay lower taxes than people in Scotland and that her Government had delivered a balanced budget. Last week I asked the Leader of the House to correct the record since both of these things are untrue, which she refused to do.

“The House of Commons Library has now confirmed that no UK Government has delivered a balanced budget since 2000-01, and that this Government does indeed pay the equivalent of £318 million every day in debt interest, while the Scottish Government must by law deliver a balanced budget every year, and also confirmed that the majority of people in Scotland pay less tax including council tax than they would if they lived in England.”

She asked Ms Mordaunt to correct the “hugely inaccurate information”, but the Commons leader replied: “I was very careful in the figures that I gave her and I stand by them. They are completely true and factual.”

After claiming ministers had been “very open” about the UK Government’s finances, she added: “Perhaps before next week she might like to read what Audit Scotland have said about her own Government’s performance.”