Andrew Neil's magazine heads to court in battle to publish Alex Salmond allegations

The Holyrood inquiry into the Scottish Government’s botched handling of harassment complaints against the former first minister was thrown into chaos on Tuesday, after MSPs on the committee narrowly voted against publishing the submission.

The vote was wafer-thin, with just the four SNP MSPs plus the independent Andy Wightman voting against publication.

The rest of the committee, Tory MSPs Murdo Fraser and Margaret Mitchell, LibDem Alex Cole-Hamilton, and Labour’s Jackie Baillie voted for the document to be published with redactions.

The result means Salmond will almost certainly not appear in front of the inquiry. He was supposed to be giving evidence to the committee this week, but his legal team say publication of the allegations is necessary for him to be able to tell the whole truth.

The cross-party committee is investigating the Scottish Government’s flawed probe into allegations of misconduct made against Salmond by two civil servants.

He had the exercise set aside in January 2019, with a judicial review declaring it “unlawful” and “tainted by bias”. The Government’s botched handling ultimately cost the taxpayer half a million pounds.

At a later criminal case the former SNP leader was cleared on 12 charges brought against him.

Following the Scottish Government’s concession of the judicial review, Sturgeon referred herself to the independent advisers on the Ministerial Code over claims she had broken strict rules by failing to swiftly declare the three meetings and two phone calls with Salmond about the harassment complaints.

Scottish Government guidelines say that when discussing official business “any significant content” should be reported back to private offices.

James Hamilton, a former director of public prosecutions in Ireland, has been tasked with investigating the First Minister’s actions.

In his submission to the Hamilton inquiry, Salmond claimed the First Minister had “repeatedly misled” MSPs about meetings between the two at Sturgeon’s home.

Sturgeon told parliament that she became aware of the government’s investigation of the allegations against Salmond when he told her at a meeting in her Glasgow home on April 2, 2018.

However, it later emerged that she met Geoff Aberdein, Salmond’s former chief of staff, in her office on March 29, 2018.

In her evidence to the cross-party Holyrood inquiry, Sturgeon said she had forgotten that meeting. 

In his submission to Hamilton Salmond said this was "untenable".

Earlier this month, the Wings Over Scotland blog and The Spectator magazine both published Salmond’s dossier.

They were both challenged by the Crown. 

The Spectator – which is chaired by Andrew Neil – is heading to the High Court in Edinburgh tomorrow to seek a ruling that would ultimately put the legality of publication beyond doubt.

Supporters of Salmond say that if the magazine wins it could mean that other documents the committee have refused to publish could enter the public domain.

That may even include evidence from Aberdein.

The magazine is applying to vary the contempt of court order which makes it illegal to identify the women who made allegations against the former first minister.

The application will be heard by Lady Dorrian, who made the order and presided over Salmond’s criminal trial.

Speaking after yesterday's committee meeting, Murdo Fraser said the vote would “only raise suspicions among the wider public that the SNP Government have had no intention of being fully transparent with this inquiry despite what the First Minister has said previously.”

However, an SNP spokesperson said publishing the document would have led to the women who complained about Salmond being identified. The spokesperson said: “It is deeply troubling that opposition committee members voted in favour of publishing Mr Salmond’s submission contrary to legal advice that to do so – even in redacted form – would be in breach of court orders regarding identification of women complainers."