FM promises not to delay ministerial code report - BBC News
Nicola Sturgeon pledges to release a report into whether she breached the code on the same day she receives it.
The report into whether Ms Sturgeon breached the code is expected to be published later this month

Nicola Sturgeon has promised to release a report into whether she breached the ministerial code on the same day that she receives it.

Irish lawyer James Hamilton is examining whether Ms Sturgeon lied to the Scottish Parliament over the Alex Salmond saga.

He is expected to have finalised his report within the next three weeks.

The first minister has repeatedly refused to say whether she will quit if Mr Hamilton finds against her.

But the code states that any government minister who is found to have knowingly misled parliament will be expected to resign.

At First Minister's Questions, Ms Sturgeon was asked by new Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar whether she would give a "cast-iron guarantee" that Mr Hamilton's report into whether she lied to parliament would be released by the government "without delay or obstruction on the day it is handed over."

The first minister gave the one-word reply: "Yes".

Mr Sarwar said he welcomed the first minister's answer, and pledged to hold her to that commitment.

He added: "We need to remove party and personality from this.

"A minister - any minister - who is found in breach of the Ministerial Code should resign."

James Hamilton is the government's independent advisor on the ministerial code

In her foreword to the ministerial code, Ms Sturgeon describes it as "guidelines for living up to the seven principles of public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership."

She goes on to say: "All Scottish ministers, including myself, are bound by its terms.

"I will lead by example in following the letter and spirit of this code, and I expect that ministers and civil servants will do likewise."

Mr Salmond has accused Ms Sturgeon of committing multiple breaches of the code - all of which she denies.

There have been claims that Ms Sturgeon misled parliament over when she first knew of the allegations against her predecessor, and that the name of a woman who made a complaint against Mr Salmond was disclosed to his former chief of staff.

Anas Sarwar was speaking at FMQs for the first time as Scottish Labour leader

There have also been accusations that Ms Sturgeon wasted more than £500,000 of public money by continuing a doomed legal fight with Mr Salmond over a judicial review into its handling of the complaints against him.

The government's legal counsel warned that it was likely to lose the case several weeks before it conceded defeat.

The legal advice was only released on Tuesday evening after opposition parties threatened to hold a vote of no confidence in Deputy First Minister John Swinney.

Some additional documents were published by the government on Thursday after opposition parties questioned why they were missing from the original batch - with Mr Swinney suggesting more could be released on Friday.

Mr Swinney said the new documents showed that there had not been an attempt to delay the judicial review so that it would overtaken by criminal proceedings against Mr Salmond, as the former first minister has claimed.

"I have instructed officials to consider whether further documents should be released, subject to essential statutory checks and notifications, and to do so as a matter of urgency," he said.

But Mr Salmond later said the documents confirmed that postponing the judicial review was "under active consideration" by the Scottish government in September 2018.

He added: "John Swinney must now be the only person in Scotland who believes that the piecemeal release of these extraordinary legal documents have done anything other than demolish the government's pretence that they were not warned months in advance that they were on course to lose the judicial review."

Mr Salmond was cleared of all of the allegations against him after a trial at the High Court in March of last year.

Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the "limited" release fell "far short" of the demands of parliament, which has voted on two previous occasions for the legal advice ahead of the judicial review case to be published in full.

Mr Ross said there were still no documents from November 2018 - two months before the government admitted it had acted unlawfully - and he called on it to "end the secrecy and release all the legal advice".

The investigation by Mr Hamilton is separate to the inquiry by a committee of MSPs into the government's unlawful handling of sexual harassment complaints against Mr Salmond.

Ms Sturgeon gave evidence to the committee in a marathon eight-hour session on Wednesday, with Mr Salmond appearing last Friday.

The Scottish Conservatives have already called on Ms Sturgeon to resign, despite neither of the inquiries having published their conclusions yet, and have threatened to hold a no confidence vote in the first minister.

There were angry exchanges over the affair at First Minister's Questions, with Conservative group leader Ruth Davidson claiming: "There is no argument if Nicola Sturgeon broke the ministerial code - the argument is only about how badly she broke it."

Ms Sturgeon responded by saying she would wait for the inquiries to do their job, adding: "I've not prejudged them - Ruth Davidson clearly has."

Mr Sarwar said the row between Ms Sturgeon and Ms Davidson showed "the worst of Scottish politics".