Nicola Sturgeon could still face Holyrood vote of no confidence

The Scottish First Minister has been cleared of breaching the ministerial code by an independent investigation.
Alex Salmond harassment allegations
Katrine Bussey23 March 2021

Nicola Sturgeon could still be facing a vote of no confidence at Holyrood despite an independent report clearing her of breaching the ministerial code.

The Scottish First Minister welcomed the results of the investigation led by James Hamilton, a former director of public prosecutions in the Republic of Ireland.

His report, published on Monday, considered whether she had broken the rules of behaviour for ministers in her actions following harassment allegations made against her predecessor Alex Salmond.

The former first minister won a payout of more than £500,000 after the Court of Session in Edinburgh ruled that the way the Scottish Government dealt with those complaints was unlawful.

Alex Salmond Legal Action

Mr Hamilton concluded that the “First Minister did not breach the provisions of the ministerial code” in her behaviour.

But a committee of the Scottish Parliament set up to consider her Government’s botched handling of the complaints against Mr Salmond is now due to report.

Leaks from the Committee on the Scottish Government’s Handling of Harassment Complaints have already suggesting it has concluded it is “hard to believe” Ms Sturgeon did not know of concerns about her predecessor’s behaviour before November 2017, as she has said.

A majority of MSPs on the committee are also understood to have concluded that Ms Sturgeon misled them if she did have knowledge of the concerns.

When the leaks of the committee’s findings emerged Ms Sturgeon, who spent eight hours being questioned by MSPs on the matter earlier this month, accused some members of having made their minds up before she had “uttered a single word of evidence”.

She dismissed the “very partisan leak” as being “not that surprising”.

However Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross insisted it was “up to the Scottish Parliament to decide if the First Minister has been misleading”.

And while he said he respected Mr Hamilton, he added his party could not agree with his assessment that the First Minister had not breached the ministerial code.

Mr Ross said: “The First Minister has been given a pass because it has been judged her ‘failure of recollection’ was ‘not deliberate’.

“I respect Mr Hamilton and his judgment but we cannot agree with that assessment.”

However Ms Sturgeon should survive if the Tories do push ahead and bring a vote of no confidence in her to Holyrood.

That is because the Scottish Greens have already said they will not support such a motion, claiming the Conservatives have shown “no interest in establishing the truth” by lodging the motion before the report was published.

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