Nicola Sturgeon will appear before Holyrood inquiry into Alex Salmond case
- Published
The allegations against Mr Salmond date to December 2013, when he was first minister and Ms Sturgeon was his deputy
Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed she is willing to appear before an inquiry into how her government handled sexual harassment claims against Alex Salmond.
Ms Sturgeon said it was part of her job as first minister to do so rather than something that was optional.
She also said the inquiry would be given access to SNP documents as well as those from the Scottish government.
The inquiry was set up after the government's investigation into the complaints was found to be unlawful.
It will be carried out by a special committee of MSPs, and will focus on how the complaints were handled and the circumstances surrounding meetings between Ms Sturgeon and Mr Salmond during the investigation.
Ms Sturgeon has also referred herself to independent advisors over whether she breached the ministerial code by speaking on five occasions to her predecessor - who strongly denies the allegations against him - while he was under investigation, and without any minutes being taken.
And she has confirmed that the Scottish government's own review of what went wrong with the investigation will be externally-led rather than internal.
Mr Salmond won his case over the Scottish government's investigation earlier this month
Meanwhile, police inquiries into the allegations are ongoing - as is an investigation by the information commissioner into how details of the Scottish government investigation were leaked to the Daily Record newspaper in August.
The first minister, who has repeatedly said she and her government will cooperate fully with all of the various inquiries, again faced questions on the affair from opposition leaders in the Holyrood chamber on Thursday.
She has previously said she did not know that two women had made allegations against Mr Salmond until he told her in a meeting at her home in Glasgow on 2 April of last year - about three months after the complaints were made to the Scottish government
The first minister has said she also met Mr Salmond alone on 7 June ahead of the SNP conference in Aberdeen, and again at her home on 14 July, and that they spoke on the telephone on 23 April and 18 July. The pair have not spoken since.
Scottish Conservative interim leader Jackson Carlaw said: "Since we last discussed this at first minister's questions we have learned that there were other contacts beyond those the first minister revealed to parliament last week.
"We've learned that her chief of staff (Liz Lloyd) met a former aide of Mr Salmond's not once but twice prior to the first meeting on 2 April.
"And it has been been reported at one of those meetings the first minister's chief of staff, to quote Mr Salmond's team, tipped them off - she said she suspected an investigation was under way.
"The inquiries will get to the bottom of all of this, but surely the first minister does not need an inquiry to realise, if that is indeed what happened, it was just plain wrong?"
The Scottish government's chief of staff Liz Lloyd, pictured here with Ms Sturgeon in Downing Street in 2015, was present when the first minister met Alex Salmond in April of last year
Mr Carlaw went on to ask Ms Sturgeon "what on earth you thought you were doing", and whether she was able to confirm that she will make herself "available personally to appear before the parliamentary inquiry".
The first minister responded: "Yes I am. As first minister I don't consider it optional for me as to whether or not I appear before parliamentary committees.
"That is a part of my job and a part of my responsibility. I can't believe that Jackson Carlaw would have doubted that for a single second".
'Answer any questions'
Ms Sturgeon also pledged: "I will answer any questions to the fullest extent possible, and my government will cooperate fully with all and any inquiries.
"But I think other members in the chamber now need to recognise that, having asked for these investigation, they are also obliged to respect those investigations."
She also accused Mr Carlaw of attempting to "avoid talking about the mess of the Brexit negotiations", which she said had left the country facing "untold damage because of the chaos and mess that his party is presiding over".
Meanwhile, Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said the parliamentary inquiry "must be as thorough as possible", as he raised concerns the committee being set up could be chaired by an SNP MSP.
He asked: "This inquiry is about restoring trust and confidence, so will the first minister's party do the right thing, will they step aside and ensure an MSP from another party chairs this inquiry?"
Ms Sturgeon told him that was a matter for Holyrood business chiefs on the parliamentary bureau.
Mr Carlaw has questioned why Ms Sturgeon continued to meet Mr Salmond after learning that he was under investigation
The Scottish government admitted in court on 8 January that the way it dealt with sexual harassment complaints against Mr Salmond was unlawful.
The admission centred on the government appointing an investigating officer who had previously spoken with the complainers, which breached its own guidelines.
The collapse of the government investigation and questions over Ms Sturgeon's involvement in it have sparked a row between her team and supporters of Mr Salmond, with a spokesman hitting out at "an attempt to smear" the first minister in the press.
The first minister's spokesman has also accused "the other side" of pursuing a "vendetta" against Ms Lloyd, her chief of staff.
Questions have been raised about when Ms Lloyd learned of the complaints against Mr Salmond, whose team has claimed she was aware of them "some time" in advance of the meeting at Ms Sturgeon's house in April.
On Tuesday, Geoff Aberdein - Mr Salmond's former chief of staff, who helped set up his meetings with Ms Sturgeon - said he had met Ms Lloyd twice in March.
He said she had "suspected" that an official complaint had been made about Mr Salmond, although "she made clear she did not know the full details and had not alerted the first minister to her suspicions".
Ms Sturgeon is said to have full confidence in Ms Lloyd and in the Scottish government's most senior civil servant, Leslie Evans, who has faced calls to resign from Mr Salmond over her handling of the investigation into the allegations against him.