SO WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THIS SHAMBLES?
With Sturgeon facing vote of no confidence, report author says:
A leaked harassment probe, a car-crash judicial review, a complainant identified, no minutes of crucial meetings, documents missing or not handed over, a damning verdict by a judge and a £500,000 bill. As Sturgeon says Hamilton report has vindicated her...
NICOLA Sturgeon still faces serious questions over how complaints against Alex Salmond were handled.
This is despite the First Minister being cleared in a long-awaited report of breaking strict rules.
James Hamilton’s independent probe found that the SNP leader did not breach the Scottish ministerial code.
But Miss Sturgeon is not completely off the hook after Mr Hamilton raised some concerns about her conduct and that of her government.
Opposition leaders demanded to know who was to blame for the litany of failures if Miss Sturgeon ‘won’t accept responsibility’ herself.
On clearing Miss Sturgeon, Mr Hamilton said that it
was ‘regrettable’ that she did not inform the Scottish parliament about a meeting where she first learned of allegations about her predecessor.
Mr Hamilton said it is now up to MSPs to decide whether they were misled – with a vote of no confidence in Miss Sturgeon due to go ahead at Holyrood this afternoon.
He also said there is ‘undoubtedly scope for political criticism’ of the way the Scottish Government handled the legal case against Mr Salmond.
But he concluded it was not a matter for him to express a view on.
Mr Hamilton also described claims by a key ally of Mr Salmond that the name of a complainer was leaked by one of Miss Sturgeon’s officials as ‘credible’, as it was confirmed that an investigation had been launched into the matter.
A separate inquiry report by a Scottish parliament committee – due to be published today – is expected to find Miss Sturgeon misled parliament at least once.
After Mr Hamilton’s report was published by the Scottish Government yesterday, Miss Sturgeon said the conclusions were ‘unequivocal’ and insisted she had acted with ‘integrity’ at all times.
But Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said: ‘The First Minister has been given a pass because it has been judged her “failure of recollection” was “not deliberate”.
‘I respect Mr Hamilton and his judgment but we cannot agree with that assessment. Nicola Sturgeon did not suddenly turn forgetful. She is not free and clear.
‘The First Minister promised to respect the decisions of both inquiry reports – not to pick and choose which one suits her and try to discredit the other.
‘The SNP spin machine will go into hyperdrive to again attack the committee report because they’re running scared of its findings. They have accelerated the vote of no confidence in Nicola Sturgeon to avoid MSPs scrutinising that report.
‘As James Hamilton says, it is up to the Scottish parliament to decide if the First Minister has been misleading.
‘This report does not change the overwhelming evidence that Nicola Sturgeon
‘Nicola Sturgeon... is not free and clear’
misled parliament, her government badly let women down and wasted more than £500,000 of taxpayers’ money.
‘If Nicola Sturgeon won’t accept responsibility, then I urge opposition parties to back our vote of no confidence.’
Mr Hamilton’s report looked into Miss Sturgeon’s conduct in relation to her failure to disclose meetings with Mr Salmond about complaints, and her failure to inform MSPs about a meeting with one of his top aides.
It also looked into allegations that she offered to intervene on behalf of her predecessor and her role in the botched legal case, which landed taxpayers with a bill of more than £500,000.
Mr Hamilton’s report concluded: ‘I am of the opinion that the First Minister did not breach the provisions of the ministerial code in respect of any of these matters.’
However, he took issue with Miss Sturgeon’s statement to MSPs about her discussions with Mr Salmond – which began with a meeting at her home on April 2, 2018 – that failed to mention a meeting with his former chief of staff, Geoff Aberdein, four days earlier in her Scottish parliament office.
When she eventually confirmed the details of the meeting in written evidence, Miss Sturgeon said she had forgotten about it.
Mr Hamilton said: ‘It is regrettable that the First Minister’s statement on January 8, 2019, did not include a reference to the meeting with Mr Aberdein on March 29.
‘In my opinion, however, her explanation for why she did not recall this meeting when giving her account to parliament, while inevitably likely to be greeted with suspicion, even scepticism by some, is not impossible.’
He added: ‘It is for the Scottish parliament to decide whether they were in fact misled.’ Referring to the Scottish Government’s eventual
‘No one can deny her errors’
decision to ‘throw in the towel’ when it was clear it was heading for defeat against Mr Salmond in the judicial review case, he said: ‘There is undoubtedly scope for political criticism of the manner in which Scottish Government handled Mr Salmond’s proceedings. That is not a matter for me to express any view upon.’
Mr Hamilton also said Mr Salmond had made ‘very serious allegations’ about the way complaints were dealt with ‘including accusations of serious impropriety’.
He said he made ‘no findings about the truth of any of these allegations, which are the subject of inquiries by the committee on the Scottish Government handling of harassment complaints of the Scottish parliament’.
He said: ‘I accept the evidence of the First Minister that she had no involvement in these matters. I do not consider that, at present, the First Minister has any responsibility under the ministerial code for any shortcomings or wrongdoing in the behaviour of other persons, if there were any such shortcomings or wrongdoing, in relation to matters from which she has properly excluded herself from any involvement.’
Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie said: ‘The judgment from James Hamilton does not make the First Minister’s resignation automatic but no one can deny her
‘Women involved were let down’
errors of judgment still make resignation a live consideration. James Hamilton does not give the First Minister a clean bill of health.
‘He says it is up to parliament to determine whether it has been misled over the help that the First Minister is said to have offered Alex Salmond in her home.
‘Even the most ardent SNP supporter must recognise that the women involved were let down by the Government and that half a million pounds was wasted defending the indefensible in court.’
Last night, Mr Salmond said he would not be commenting on the matter. But it is understood he plans to hold a press conference tomorrow after the publication of the Holyrood inquiry report and the vote of no confidence, which are both scheduled for today. In a statement, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘Mr Hamilton has considered all of the allegations against me, and I am happy that his report’s findings clear me of any breach of the ministerial code. I sought at every stage in this issue to act with integrity and in the public interest. As I have previously made clear, I did not consider that I had broken the code, but these findings are official, definitive and independent adjudication of that.’
A planned no confidence vote in Miss Sturgeon will go ahead today but is unlikely to win a majority because the Greens say they will
not support it. Speaking to the BBC last night, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘You know, some pretty grim allegations have been levelled at me over the past months. They have not been easy, they’ve been difficult to contend with.
‘I have been at peace with my own conscience on all of these matters.’
Asked if she had lived up to the spirit of the ministerial code, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘Yes, I have.’
On the decision of whether parliament was misled, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘James Hamilton was given the task of determining whether or not I breached the ministerial code, and he’s decided I did not breach the ministerial code.
‘One of the allegations he has reached that conclusion on was whether or not I misled parliament. Of course, subjectively it’s for parliament to decide that. But I look forward – if that’s the right expression – for the committee report being published tomorrow. We will look at that in great detail.’
NICOLA Sturgeon referred herself to the standards watchdog over her role in the Salmond saga more than two years ago.
The findings of the probe, carried out by former prosecutor James Hamilton, were released in the final hours of the parliamentary term.
His comprehensive report, more than 60 pages long, concluded that Miss Sturgeon did not breach the ministerial code.
Her cheerleaders were quick to portray this as a complete vindication, claiming that it effectively draws a line under the controversy.
But there are still many unanswered questions – and despite incontrovertible evidence of monstrous failures, no heads have rolled.
Consider the evidence: the details of the internal investigation into Alex Salmond were leaked, yet no one resigned and no one was fired.
The former First Minister’s one-time chief of staff said the identity of a complainant was revealed to him – a claim corroborated by three witnesses – but again, there were no resignations or sackings.
Miss Sturgeon met Mr Salmond during the probe and failed to inform civil servants for two months. Predictably, no one was fired – and no one quit.
We know that ministers pressed ahead with their doomed court battle, contesting Mr Salmond’s judicial review, saddling the taxpayer with a bill of more than £500,000.
Thanks to legal documentation the SNP Government tried to suppress, we also know that its own lawyers were advising against this course of action – and yet no one has been held to account.
The absence of minutes is a hallmark of this secretive administration, and so it proved during the Salmond affair, when no record was kept during pivotal meetings between the Government and external counsel, including one at which Miss Sturgeon was present.
The late disclosure of documents caused the Government’s QCs, through no fault of their own, to give assurances to the Court of Session that were false.
And the court ruled the Government behaved in a manner that was ‘unlawful’, ‘procedurally unfair’, and ‘tainted by apparent bias’.
Meanwhile, the parliamentary committee examining this shameful episode was treated with utter contempt from the start by Miss Sturgeon’s Government.
She had pledged to ‘fully co-operate with the… inquiry’, but documents were withheld and witness requests denied – and senior mandarins had to revise their evidence after giving misleading testimony.
Today MSPs who have faced countless dead ends as they tried to get to the bottom of this mess will deliver their judgment on what went wrong – and who’s to blame.
It’s likely that their conclusions will make far more uncomfortable reading for the First Minister – who also faces a no confidence vote.
One of their findings, leaked last week, is that Miss Sturgeon misled MSPs over meetings she held with her predecessor.
The SNP hierarchy has attempted to smear the committee as partisan, pursuing a nakedly political vendetta – even though it’s convened by a Nationalist MSP.
These are disreputable tactics, but the Government can’t simply pick and choose which due process it wants to abide by – embracing a report that clears the First Minister and rejecting out of hand months of forensic deliberation by a cross-party committee.
Miss Sturgeon and her supporters can congratulate themselves on yesterday’s supposed vindication.
But it’s nothing to be proud of – this is a shabby sequence of events that has dragged the reputation of our democracy into the mire.