A cross party group of MSPs has called on the new Police Scotland chief constable to make a statement on his knowledge of a disgraced undercover spying unit south of the border.

MSPs spoke out after Phil Gormley refused to shed light on whether he had portfolio responsibility for the notorious Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) when he was at the Metropolitan Police.

The SDS, which existed between 1968 and 2008, embedded officers in protest groups across the UK and was part of the Met’s Special Branch.

However, the unit’s methods in the 1980s and 1990s have been widely discredited and are the subject of a judge-led inquiry into the practices of undercover policing.

SDS officers had sex with their female targets, assumed the identities of dead children, and in one case former undercover operative Bob Lambert fathered a child with an activist.

The Herald: Former undercover cop Bob Lambert admitted taking a dead Plumstead child's identity in a Channel 4 Dispatches programmePicture: Lambert

Seven women received compensation and an apology from the Met as a result of the officers’ behaviour.

The SDS also spied on anti-racist groups and even monitored the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence in the 1990s.

It has also been revealed that Mark Kennedy, an undercover officer for the separate National Public Order Intelligence Unit, visited Scotland over a dozen times while on duty.

Gormley, who started on January 5, is under the spotlight as he headed the Met's Special Branch for a period from 2005.

A biography states: "From 2005 Phil led the modernisation of Specialist Operations and took command of MPS Special Branch, driving forward the merger of Special Branch and the Anti Terrorist Branch to form the new Counter Terrorism Command."

In the weeks leading up to Gormley taking over from Sir Stephen House, Police Scotland referred questions about the new chief and the SDS to the Met, which declined to provide specific answers on the officer.

The Sunday Herald again asked on Wednesday – when Gormley was in post - but the force stonewalled:

"Neither Police Scotland or Mr Gormley have anything to add to the previously supplied statement from the Metropolitan Police," said a spokesman.

MSPs, who raised the activities of the SDS in a Holyrood debate last week on undercover policing, have now weighed in to the controversy.

Alison McInnes, a Liberal Democrat MSP who has been a staunch critic of the single force’s performance, said:

"People need answers over what happened here and if our new Chief Constable can shed any light on these discredited policing tactics then he needs to do so. These are straightforward questions and Phil Gormley has the chance to put them to bed and get on with the substantial job of addressing the problems that Police Scotland is facing."

The Herald: John Finnie

Picture: MSP Finnie

John Finnie, a Highlands and Islands MSP and former police officer, said: "If our new chief constable is unwilling to even reveal whether he had line management responsibility for, let alone what he knew about, the activities of the notorious SDS, then he is simply fuelling fires many believe he's well placed to dampen. I would ask him to engage in, rather than frustrate, debate on this important matter."

Labour MSP Neil Findlay, who organised the Holyrood debate last week, told the Sunday Herald: "The new Chief Constable was head of Special Branch and Special Branch had responsibility for the discredited SDS. The Chief Constable has to be open and transparent about what his involvement was, if any, with this organisation and what role he played. If he wants to get his career at Police Scotland off to a good start he might wish to begin by answering some basic questions."

Lindsay Davies, a representative from the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, also backed transparency:

"The list of outrages perpetrated by these thoroughly discredited units has already led to unprecedented apologies and record compensation payments.

"He should come clean and tell the Scottish public the truth about any knowledge he has of the appalling practices of the political secret police."

The call for openness comes after the force snubbed a Holyrood committee’s request for four police officers to give evidence to a hearing into an unrelated spying scandal.

Police Scotland last year breached new rules to protect journalists and their sources from snooping and the Justice Committee wanted to ask the officers questions about the matter.

However, deputy chief constable Neil Richardson cited "critical legal issues" and offered a more senior officer instead.