Nicola’s remarks are ‘dangerous’
NICOLA Sturgeon has made ‘dangerous’ allegations about the Holyrood inquiry which call into question the way the parliament operates, according to the Scottish Labour leader.
Anas Sarwar yesterday criticised the First Minister for launching a strongly worded attack on the ‘partisan’ committee holding the inquiry.
After details of key findings of the committee’s report were leaked on Thursday evening, Miss Sturgeon hit out at the ‘very partisan’ leak and claimed opposition members had ‘made their minds up about me before I uttered a single word’.
But Mr Sarwar said: ‘I really worry about that allegation that is coming directly from the First Minister and the Scottish Government because you could flip that the other way and say that the four SNP members of that committee never went into it independently, were never willing to properly question and scrutinise their boss.
‘And that accusation calls into question the very processes of our parliament and calls into question the very principles of our democracy around accountability and transparency.
‘That’s a very dangerous allegation to go down.’
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘By making these comments before she’s seen the report, the [First Minister] is doing the very thing she’s accusing others of.’
Mr Sarwar said there is ‘no doubt’ that any minister who is found to have breached the ministerial code should resign. On the suggestion the report has not said Miss Sturgeon ‘knowingly’ misled parliament, he said: ‘A breach is a breach, and a misleading of the parliament is a misleading of the parliament.
‘Only the First Minister herself can say or judge whether she knowingly did it or unknowingly did it but there is a principle of corroboration and what we’ve seen from reports is there are three individuals who say a situation happened and the First Minister refutes that claim.
‘So let’s wait and see what the committee report says, and if the committee report believes that on the balance of probabilities, on the fact you have three individuals saying one thing and the First Minister saying another thing and that means she has misled the committee, or indeed, worse, misled the parliament and therefore breached the ministerial code, then I think that is really serious.’