John Swinney has desperately tried to shut down any kind of probe into the SNP’s finances as MPs delayed a decision on whether to launch a Westminster inquiry.

The First Minister refused to commit to appearing before a potential Commons investigation into the Peter Murrell scandal.

The Scottish Conservatives said Mr Swinney was clearly ‘terrified’ of what might come out.

Murrell, 61, last month pleaded guilty to embezzling £400,310 from SNP funds between 2010 and 2022, when he was SNP chief executive and married to Nicola Sturgeon.

On Tuesday, veteran SNP Pete Wishart admitted it had been ‘foolish’ to have a husband and wife running the party, and there was ‘no doubt’ mistakes were made.

He said: ‘Obviously, something went badly wrong with our governance, and Peter had an opportunity to take advantage of it.’

But the First Minister rejected calls from former SNP treasurer Douglas Chapman for a new audit of the party’s accounts.

He claimed he was ‘very satisfied’ with financial controls already in place and there was no need for a parliamentary probe into issues related to the party’s finances.

The Mail revealed Mr Chapman, who quit his role in charge of the SNP’s finances in 2021 after being denied the information to do the job, demanded a ‘complete audit’ of the party’s accounts over the last decade.

Mr Swinney said: ‘We’ve paid for an audit of our accounts over many years. We pay a lot of money for our audit every year.

‘We’ve carried out in recent years a review of our governance. We have in place very strong levels of financial and governance control which I’m very satisfied with.’

Scottish Labour will on Wednesday force a Holyrood vote on an inquiry ‘into the implications and lessons to be learned’ from the Murrell police probe and his embezzlement conviction.

SNP and Green MSPs are expected to block it, with the Greens proposing an inquiry into party finance in general that ignores Murrell, and the SNP saying parties investigating each other would be a ‘conflict of interest’.

The Scottish Affairs Committee (SAC) at Westminster discussed on Tuesday whether to hold its own inquiry if Holyrood rejects one but delayed a decision until after Wednesday’s vote.

Mr Swinney refused to say if he would cooperate with any Westminster probe, saying: ‘We will see what happens.’

He added: ‘I don’t think it is necessary, no. I think it’s inappropriate for there to be an inquiry into these matters because they affect the internal governance of the SNP, which I have sorted out.

‘The idea of political rivals scrutinising the internal business of other political parties is, well let me just say, an interesting precedent to set that people should think twice about.’

The First Minister’s official spokesman claimed that if the SAC did hold an inquiry it would ‘destroy the credibility’ of the group and its chair, Labour’s Patrica Ferguson.

Scottish Conservative deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: ‘It’s clear that John Swinney is terrified of an inquiry being held into the Murrell scandal.

‘He doesn’t want any light to be shone on the failures of governance that allowed the SNP’s chief executive to steal on an industrial scale for years without being detected. 

'Or on why he and Nicola Sturgeon repeatedly denied there was any problem with the party’s finances, long after numerous whistleblowers had raised red flags.

‘Swinney may close ranks to prevent a Holyrood inquiry but, should Westminster hold one, there will be no hiding place for him if he is summoned to give evidence.’

Pete Wishart, the SNP’s longest serving MP, said there was a ‘demand’ in the party to look again at its governance to ‘make sure like things like this will never, ever happen again’.

Asked if mistakes were made, the Perth MP told the BBC: ‘Of course. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. We’re down £400,000 because of embezzlement.’

‘We had Nicola as party leader and her husband Peter as the chief executive of Scottish National Party, and I think it was a relationship has now proven not to have worked.

‘I think we were probably foolish to proceed with all that. It probably inhibited a lot of curiosity about some of the things that were going on.‘

Scottish Labour deputy Dame Jackie Baillie said: ‘There are still significant and serious questions to be answered about Peter Murrell’s criminal activity and the SNP culture that enabled it to happen.

‘It is right that lessons are learned from Operation Branchform and this terrible scandal so that we can give the public the reassurances they need, particularly when it comes to how their money is handled.

‘The SNP have so far dug their heels in on the issue of an inquiry, but they still have a final chance to do the right thing.’

Scottish Greens co-leader Ross Greer said Labour was ‘trying to waste taxpayers’ money on an inquiry into the SNP without even explaining what the point would be’.

He said: ‘Politicians shouldn’t be marking each other’s homework.

‘We need to talk about the influence that wealthy individuals and organisations wield via their donations to politicians and the huge amount of secrecy that surrounds money in politics.’

Backing a Holyrood probe, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: ‘I am baffled that no SNP parliamentarian seems the least bit curious about how deep Peter Murrell’s deception went.’