SNP politician forced to resign as finance secretary hours before he was to deliver budget

Derek Mackay is under intense pressure to quit as a member of the Scottish parliament after being forced to resign as finance secretary for sending hundreds of messages to a 16-year-old boy.

Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, revealed on Thursday morning that Mackay had stood down from her government hours before he was due to deliver next year’s budget. Four hours later, she told MSPs he had also been suspended from the Scottish National party.

In an emergency statement, Sturgeon told the Scottish parliament: “It was clear to me Derek Mackay’s conduct fell far short of what was expected of a minister.”

Profile Who is Derek Mackay? Show Hide Derek Mackay was tipped as a possible successor to Nicola Sturgeon, as leader of the Scottish National party, but he has been forced to quit the Scottish government. The 42-year-old stepped down as Scottish finance secretary just hours before he was due to unveil his budget for 2020-21, after reports he had sent hundreds of messages to a 16-year-old boy. It comes more than two decades after he began his career in politics, being elected as a councillor in Renfrewshire in 1999. It made him the youngest male councillor in Scotland, having been elected at just 21. Mackay went on to become leader of the council’s SNP group, and took them into power in the area for the first time in 2007- at which point he became leader of the council. He used his role to build a national profile within local politics, becoming the SNP group leader at Cosla - the organisation which represents Scotland’s local authorities. In 2011 he was elected to Holyrood as MSP for Renfrewshire North and West. That same year he joined the Scottish government, becoming minister for local government and planning. He was appointed transport minster in a reshuffle after Nicola Sturgeon became first minister in 2014. He was further promoted to the cabinet after the 2016 Scottish election, taking the job of finance and economy secretary. He was previously married and has two children, but in 2013 he came out as gay. He later described that as the “most difficult thing I’ve ever had to deal with”. During his time as finance secretary, he was responsible for introducing new Scottish income tax rates, including a new “starter rate” set at 19p for lower earners. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

Opposition leaders said Mackay, 42, should quit immediately as an MSP without waiting for the results of an SNP inquiry. They also questioned why it took Sturgeon 18 hours to announce his suspension.

On Thursday, the Scottish Sun published a story about the messages. The paper’s editor, Alan Muir, told the first minister’s office late on Wednesday afternoon it had copies of hundreds of messages that Mackay had sent the schoolboy via Facebook and Instagram.

Mackay’s unsolicited messages, which began on 2 August, included calling him “cute” a number of times, discussing the boy’s new haircut, and inviting him to dinner and to a parliamentary event as his guest. He began following the boy, a rugby player, on both platforms last year, liking his photographs.

In his statement on Thursday morning, Mackay said he had tendered his resignation to Sturgeon with immediate effect on Wednesday evening. “I take full responsibility for my actions. I have behaved foolishly and I am truly sorry. I apologise unreservedly to the individual involved and his family,” Mackay said.

Because he resigned rather than being sacked, he is now eligible for a Scottish parliament resettlement grant of £11,945 in three months’ time.

His departure forced Sturgeon to ask his deputy, Kate Forbes, 29, to deliver the budget with less than 24 hours’ notice. Forbes, the public finance minister, first entered parliament in 2016 and is tipped as a future party leader. She became the first woman to deliver a Scottish budget.

She told MSPs the Scottish government was freezing the top two rates of Scotland’s income tax and raising the threshold of the basic and intermediate bands by inflation, while freezing Scotland’s version of property sales stamp duty at its current rate.

Mackay, who served for seven years as the SNP’s powerful chairman and business convenor, chairing its national conference, had also widely been seen as a contender to replace Sturgeon as leader. He disclosed he was gay after his marriage ended in 2013. He has two sons.

Sturgeon told MSPs in her emergency statement that Mackay’s suspension became necessary only on Thursday morning, once she had read the full text of his messages. However, the editor had given her office details of the most serious messages the previous evening.

The Sun reported the boy saying he felt “grossed out” when Mackay called him cute, and that he stopped responding to his messages on 27 December. Mackay continued messaging him until 1 February, even though the boy refused to reply. The paper said the teenager’s mother was furious. “I worry about what would have happened if my son had sent him back a message he wanted to hear,” she said.

The interim Scottish Conservative leader, Jackson Carlaw, suggested Mackay could be guilty of grooming the 16-year-old. Sturgeon said that since Mackay had resigned and been suspended from the SNP, it was for other organisations to decide whether to take further action.

Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, said during first minister’s questions that Mackay should quit Holyrood. “[The messages] are an abuse of power and nothing short of predatory,” Leonard said.

Speaking to reporters, Sturgeon said she believed Mackay needed to consider his political future, but refused to say he should quit as an MSP. “Clearly, there are issues to be reflected on here, but it was inconsistent for the party to suspend him pending further investigation and for me then to immediately pre-empt the outcome of that,” she said.

“But I couldn’t be clearer about my views of the seriousness and the severity of the issues we are discussing today.”

Mary Glasgow, the chief executive of the charity Children 1st, said her organisation “has always been clear children and young people are vulnerable in situations where there is a significant difference in age, power and status between them and another person. Society should recognise by now that it is never acceptable to exploit that vulnerability.”

Police Scotland said it was studying the Sun’s reports, but stopped short of saying it had begun a criminal investigation. “We have not received any complaint of criminality. However, we are assessing available information from media reporting and would encourage anyone with information to please come forward,” the force said.

The draft budget, which can only be passed with the support of at least one other party as the SNP does not have an overall majority, offers £1.8bn in investments in low-carbon infrastructure, including extra money for low-carbon heating, an extra £270m spending on rail, and £16m on concessionary bus travel.

It includes a 3% pay rise for public sector workers earning less than £80,000, and a real-terms increase of £37m in funding for Police Scotland.