THE Trump Organisation has come under fire for claiming up to £500,000 from the furlough scheme for its flagship Scottish resort, despite making redundancies.

Trump’s Scottish firms received as much as £575,000 thanks to the UK job retention scheme over a two-month period.

The furlough scheme has been operational since March last year, although HMRC’s data only details payments claimed by employers during December and January.

It shows Turnberry, Ayrshire, received between £200,000 and £500,000, while Trump’s Aberdeenshire resort received between £35,000 and £75,000, according to a report in the Scotsman.

Since then, union bosses have slammed the "scandal", saying that axing staff while claiming furlough made a "mockery" of the scheme.

It said at least 66 jobs had been lost at Turnberry since last summer, with some staff rehired on "inferior" terms.

It has now called on HMRC to investigate.

Mick Cash, RMT general secretary, said: “It is clear to us that at the very least the principles of the job retention scheme appear to have been breached by the Trump Organisation and that should now be subjected to a detailed and forensic investigation by HMRC.

“It's a scandal and as we slowly emerge from lockdown, we are calling for any discarded staff to be re-engaged on decent pay and conditions, and for that same principle to ‎be applied to new employees as well.”

The latest accounts for Turnberry, which predate the pandemic, show it employed an average monthly number of 541 staff in 2009, with an annual wage bill of £8.9 million.

The National:

Trump’s Aberdeenshire resort employed 84 staff, with a £1.9m wage bill.

Scottish Labour’s Colin Smyth said it was "the tip of the iceberg".

He said: “It’s appalling that Trump has been getting bailouts from the UK Government on one hand while handing out redundancy notices to workers with the other.

Walter Shaub, a former director of the US Office of Government Ethics said: “From the UK perspective, I can't imagine the citizenry there would be any more happy than a majority of US citizens were about tax dollars propping up an American president's business interests.

"It's a disgrace to the very concept of democracy.”

There is no suggestion of impropriety on the part of Trump’s companies, which are entitled to access the furlough initiative.

Gleneagles Hotel received between £1.5m and £3.5m over the two-month period.

The luxury hotel's headcount exceeds Trump’s firms, with an average monthly number of 661 full-time and 306 part-time staff in 2019, and a wage bill of £23.8m.

Meanwhile, The Old Course in St Andrews, Fife, received between £200,000 and £500,000.

It had an average of 455 monthly employees in 2019, with a wage bill of £6.7m.

The Trump Organization has been contacted for comment.