Kitchen confidential: The meetings
Alex Salmond’s appearance in front of the Holyrood committee of inquiry on Wednesday will focus on his meetings with Nicola Sturgeon when they discussed the harassment complaints against him.
MSPs will seek clarity from Salmond, followed by Sturgeon next week, about what was agreed at a pivotal meeting at the first minister’s Glasgow home on April 2, 2018. She initially told MSPs this was when she first heard of the allegations – which the government had been investigating for months – and said the meeting had been arranged in her capacity as SNP leader. However, SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, her husband, later suggested it was government not party business.
However, Salmond claims Sturgeon arranged the meeting four days earlier with his former chief of staff, Geoff Aberdein, when it was clear the meeting would be to discuss the Scottish Government’s misconduct investigation. Sturgeon later said she had “forgotten” the earlier meeting. A separate inquiry is under way into whether she broke the ministerial code by misleading MSPs.
At the meeting in her home, Sturgeon and Salmond spoke privately in the kitchen before joining their advisers. Supporters of Salmond claim that after being told the inquiry was unlawful, Sturgeon told the gathering she would propose mediation. She did not, however, and, it is alleged, then encouraged Salmond to make a submission to the inquiry solely in a bid to bolster its legitimacy. Sturgeon has robustly rejected any criticism of her actions.
Scottish Labour interim leader and committee member Jackie Baillie said: “The key thing is to establish what happened at the meetings at the first minister’s house and subsequently.
“This will determine whether they were held as party meetings or in her capacity as first minister, the issues that were discussed and whether they should have been reported to the Scottish Government. These are issues we need to explore.
“The committee will then be in a position to test what they have heard and that will help to inform the report we then write.”