Scottish Greens will not support John Swinney no confidence vote

A no confidence vote in John Swinney will go ahead on Wednesday

A vote of no confidence in Deputy First Minister John Swinney looks set to fail after the Scottish Greens announced they would not support it.

The Scottish Conservatives tabled the motion two weeks ago to pressure Mr Swinney into releasing government legal advice from a judicial review case.

He eventually agreed to hand over some papers from the legal battle with former first minister Alex Salmond.

The confidence vote has been confirmed to go ahead on Wednesday.

However, the motion is likely to fail after the Scottish Greens turned against the move, describing it as "opportunistic political theatre".

The Tories said the announcement showed the Greens "will let the SNP away with anything".

• Lawyers had 'reservations' about Salmond case

• Swinney agrees to publish Salmond row legal advice

• What is the Sturgeon and Salmond row all about?

All of the opposition parties had twice backed Holyrood motions demanding the government hand over its legal advice to the parliamentary inquiry into the mishandling of complaints against Mr Salmond.

Mr Swinney eventually agreed to hand over the documents after Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens said they would back a Tory motion of no confidence in his position as deputy first minister.

A number of documents were subsequently published, across three days.

However, inquiry convener Linda Fabiani - an SNP MSP - wrote to Mr Swinney on Tuesday afternoon to say that "the committee is not reassured it has received all relevant information".

Alex Salmond was cleared of charges of sexual assault in a separate High Court trial

By that time, a vote on the motion of no confidence had already been fixed for Wednesday evening.

And the Greens - who had previously said their position would hinge on "an agreement which is acceptable to the committee" - had already said they would not back the motion, meaning the other opposition parties are unlikely to have the votes to pass it.

Co-leader Patrick Harvie said the Tories had claimed the evidence provided so far was both a "bombshell revelation" but also "inadequate to draw conclusions on the issues that matter".

He said: "The Scottish Conservatives have no interest in making sure women are supported coming forward with complaints in the future.

"For them, this vote of no confidence is a pathetic political game just weeks ahead of an election in which they have nothing positive to offer the people of Scotland."

This will be the second no confidence vote John Swinney has faced at Holyrood. And for the second time he is expected to be saved by the votes of the Scottish Greens.

That's what happened last year when Labour moved against the deputy first minister over the exams debacle.

The Greens will give the SNP the majority they need to save Mr Swinney's political skin.

That will be a relief to the Scottish government who were forced to publish key parts of the legal advice they received in the Salmond case in order to avoid defeat and the loss of a key minister.

Both the Conservatives and the harassment complaints committee are not convinced Mr Swinney has published enough. The Greens think he has.

The Tories accuse the Greens of being weak and unprincipled. The Greens accuse the Tories of a pathetic attempt to create political theatre ahead of the Holyrood election. It feels as if the campaign has already begun.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the Greens had "set aside all principles" to rescue Mr Swinney.

He said: "Their cause always comes first - and that's independence, not the environment. Their true colours are not green, they are SNP yellow.

"Patrick Harvie is back in his happy place - Nicola Sturgeon's pocket. The Greens have shown they are too weak to stand up to the SNP and support the position they already set out in two votes of the Scottish Parliament.

"The case for the vote of no confidence in John Swinney is clear to any impartial observer. We can no longer trust him to do the right thing. He has abused his power to cover up crucial evidence."

Patrick Harvie said his party would not support the Scottish Conservative motion

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie earlier said his party would "seriously consider" backing a vote of no confidence in Mr Swinney unless the documents demanded by parliament were produced.

Labour are also understood to have concerns over what documents have been handed over and whether others have been withheld.

The legal advice published last week showed that Scottish government lawyers had "reservations" about its court battle with former first minister Alex Salmond more than two months before it conceded the case.

Mr Salmond launched the judicial review case after complaining that the government's handling of two internal harassment complaints against him had been unfair.

The government eventually conceded that its approach had been "unlawful" in that it was "tainted by apparent bias", and agreed to pay Mr Salmond more than £500,000 in legal fees.

A spokesman for Mr Swinney said the Holyrood vote "has nothing to do with principle and everything to do with grubby Tory politicking".

He added: ""The Scottish government has taken the exceptional step of publishing in full the key legal advice on this issue - something that no previous government in Scotland has done.

"That means the committee has been given the legal advice it asked for, and the Tories' claims to the contrary are baseless."