UK crime agencies willing to help Police Scotland's SNP probe, Labour minister says

UK crime enforcement agencies would be on hand to assist Police Scotland with the ongoing probe into the SNP’s finances, a Labour minister has said.

Ruth Anderson, a UK Government whip in the House of Lords, said that “every agency would wish to assist” with Operation Branchform after it was raised by a Scottish Labour peer.

George Foulkes had raised the police operation in the SNP finances, which officially began in July 2021.

He told the Lords: “The minister knows that while justice is devolved, there is great concern here in the rest of the United Kingdom about the fact that Operation Branchform – which is dealing with very serious matters of fraud, of embezzlement, and of signature copying – has taken over three years now.

“It’s in no one's interest that it should drag on and on and on.

“So if Police Scotland ask us to provide specialist help from the National Crime Agency and the Serious Fraud Office, can we give them that help?”

A police care parked outside Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell's home amid Operation BranchformResponding, Anderson said: “I'm of course aware of the Police Scotland investigation into the Scottish National Party.

“However, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on an investigation that is currently ongoing and operational decisions are a matter for Police Scotland.

“Of course, if they were to make such requests, I'm sure that every agency would wish to assist.”

It comes after Scottish criminal defence lawyer Thomas Leonard Ross KC said that the Police Scotland probe into the SNP “cannot go on indefinitely”.

He told Sky News earlier in October: “Once somebody is charged then they have the right to a trial within a reasonable time.

“Before a person is formally charged, there might be an argument as to whether the clock is efficiently running.

“There is absolutely no doubt that it is running in relation to Mr [Peter] Murrell, so certainly the police and Crown Office have to be alive to that.”

Murrell was arrested and charged in connection with embezzlement in April 2024. The Crown Office later confirmed that his wife, former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, and former SNP treasurer Colin Beattie remained under investigation.

Both Sturgeon and Beattie were arrested, questioned, and released without charge in 2023.