Famous TV chef serves up a boost to Yes campaign
Award-winning chef Albert Roux is among 40 food and drink proprietors across Scotland who have signed an open letter backing independence - but he admits to having fears for the country’s finances.
The chef from France who owns Chez Roux at the Rocpool Reserve in Inverness said he admires First Minister Alex Salmond for "selling Scotland’s beauty to the world" but said there could be problems for the country’s financial services sector.
He said: "The First Minister and his team have travelled the world to sell Scotland not only as a place to visit for a summer holiday but as a place to visit for the whole 12 months of the year.
"France gets 85 million visitors a year but its only in the last few years increasingly more and more visitors are visiting the beautiful country of Scotland and that’s thanks to him."
Mr Roux, who joined forces with Charleston Academy in Inverness to fundraise for a £250,000 kitchen for pupils from across the city, where they can be taught culinary and hospitality skills by visiting professionals, said he knew too little about the impending financial climate in Scotland to comment on those matters, but believes there may be turmoil.
He said: "I don’t know enough about that. I do not want to form an opinion, But I have concerns. It’s a dark room. All I know is the First Minister has done magic for the tourist industry."
The open-letter backing independence has also been supported by Dennis Overtone, chairman of Aquascot seafood business in Alness; Paddy Crerar, chief executive of Crerar Hotels, which owns the Craiglynne Hotel in Grantown; Toni Vastano, proprietor of La Taverna restaurant in Aviemore, and Stewart McConnach from Caithness Biscuits.
It comes after Gavin Hewitt, the former Scotch Whisky Association chairman, this week claimed more than 100 Scottish business leaders wanted to sign a letter backing the Union but stayed silent because they feared "consequences" from the SNP Government.
He helped gather signatures, and said around half the executives he approached agreed the business case for independence was not yet made but declined to go public amid worries of a Nationalist backlash.
Since then more than 100 business leaders added their names to a declaration in favour of independence, following a similar statement signed by around 200 executives in August.
Mr Overtone said: "We need to take the scare mongering about big businesses leaving Scotland with a pinch of salt. What big businesses? Surely banks are not counted, they’re government owned. I think businesses will benefit from independence. At the moment, all I see is the money Scotland gets from the UK for businesses being diluted to pay for bureaucracy and we need every penny to develop the skills of our young people, who are the future of Scotland."
He added: "The amount of red tape that’s coming out of Europe is ridiculous, We could stand up as a separate country to Europe and argue against those things."
A spokesman for the Better Together campaign said: "If Scotland does manage to negotiate re-entry to the EU after independence, then we would have a weaker voice in the EU than the UK currently does and there would be different terms and conditions. And Scotland is unlikely to qualify for current exemptions the UK is entitled to around VAT."
