Nicola Sturgeon urges inquiry to compel Alex Salmond to appear before them

Answering questions from Ruth Davidson and Jackie Baillie, the SNP leader said she was relishing the opportunity to give evidence next week.

But, she added, the committee risked "indulging conspiracy theories, without insisting that people come before the committee to substantiate those theories".

It’s increasingly unlikely Alex Salmond will now appear before MSPs. He was supposed to be in front of the committee on Tuesday, but pulled out after parliament refused to publish his submission to the separate ministerial code probe.

His legal team claims that refusal means the accusation can't be discussed and that he’s prevented from being able to tell the whole truth. 

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

The committee is looking into the Scottish Government’s botched handling of allegations of harassment 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 of sexual assault.

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 the nature of meetings between the two at Sturgeon’s home.

While she says they were party work, he suggests they were clearly to discuss government business.

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".

During First Minister’s Questions, Davidson, the Holyrood Tory leader, raised some of the allegations made in Salmond’s submission, accusing Sturgeon of organising meetings with her predecessor to discuss government business, but failing to record them appropriately as required by the ministerial code.

Sturgeon said: “I've had accusations levelled at me now for two years, and I've not been able to answer those fully, firstly because of ongoing criminal proceedings and latterly out of respect to the process of this committee.

“It's not me that’s refusing to sit in front of the committee. I'm relishing the prospect of doing that and then people can hear my account, and they can make up their own minds. In the meantime, I'll get on with doing the job that people across this country. want me to do, which is to get on with leading this country through a pandemic.”

Davidson said: “In everyone else's mind, including [Sturgeon's husband and SNP chief executive] Peter Murrell's, this was always a government matter, but according to the First Minister's story, it only became a government matter on June 6, when she wrote to the Permanent Secretary that she knew about the investigation. 

“So on the sixth of June this became, to the First Minister's mind, a government matter. And being a government matter she then a month later, set up a meeting with Alex Salmond in her house on the 14th of July. And then she called him four days later, all of this on a government matter, all without an official present, all without a record taken and all against the ministerial code. 

“So let me ask the First Minister, if she knew that this was government business on June 6, why did she set up these July meetings and phone calls, without an official present, and without a record taken?"

Sturgeon told the Tory: “I've been patiently waiting now to give oral evidence to the committee. I think my date to do that, and I understand the reasons why, has been postponed certainly two perhaps three times and I certainly hope to be sitting in front of the committee, answering all of these questions on oath next Tuesday morning and people can listen to that and they can make up their own minds because I believe it is important to subject myself to scrutiny, to make sure that government is subjected to scrutiny, but also to have the opportunity to take head on some of the ridiculous conspiracy theories that people like Ruth Davidson, in my view, have been all too quick to wont to indulge."

She added: “And I call on anybody who's got anything to help with the process of this committee to sit before that committee, and do what I am going to do, and put an account on the record, on oath, because I'm not the one who is refusing to do that. 

“All of my meetings, as I've said before, were in my capacity as party leader. I will set that out again orally. I informed the Permanent Secretary in June, when I thought the government was going to be subjected to legal challenge. I've made all of that clear, and all along I was determined that I would do nothing to intervene in or compromise the confidentiality and the independence and the integrity of a process that was kicked off because women - whose voice, frankly, has been too often lost in this whole process - came forward with complaints, and I thought it was important that they got properly investigated and not swept under the carpet just because of the seniority and the party affiliation of who those complaints were about."

Davidson said there had clearly been "a cover up at the heart of government".

"This whole affair stinks to high heaven," she said. 

Labour’s interim leader Jackie Baillie – who sits on the committee – asked Sturgeon three times if she would resign if she was found to have broken the ministerial code.

“As a member of the committee on the Scottish Government handling of harassment complaints I will not prejudge the outcome before the First Minister gives evidence next week, and she knows I'm not a great believer in conspiracy theories, but it does appear that the government procedures were deeply flawed and that two women were let down by the process, which I think we would all agree, we must ensure never happens again. 

She added: “The ministerial code exists to protect the public interest to ensure that there is trust between politicians and the public, and for the public to hold the government to account. It is therefore critically important. Can I therefore ask her if she is found to have breached the ministerial code will she resign?

“This is the Jackie Baillie that's not prejudging the outcome,” Sturgeon said. “When we have the outcomes of the committee process and let me say on the committee process and there have been women involved in this, who have, I know because it's published, written to the committee saying that they think the committee process is now letting them down, as well and I think it's important not to lose sight of that so when the committee has concluded, it's working.

“I still hope the committee will perhaps use the powers that are available to it, to ensure that everybody relevant sits before this committee and gives evidence."

Sturgeon said she did not consider she had broken the ministerial code and that she wouldn't discuss hypotheticals.

She said: "Jackie Baillie stands up here and says she's not prejudging the outcome of things in one breath, but in the next breath, she says, we know things before the committee has even heard a single word in oral session for me. 

“So I think Jackie Baillie should really decide whether she's open minded, objective and impartial on this, or whether she has prejudged the outcome.

“I suspect that for Jackie Baillie and some of the Conservatives it doesn't matter what I say on Tuesday, the press releases will already be written, just as I suspect they were before my husband appeared for the second time earlier this week. "