Sturgeon likely to cling to job even if she has broken code

NICOLA STURGEON yesterday indicated she would try to cling on as First Minister even if an independent inquiry found she broke the ministerial code of conduct in the Alex Salmond scandal.

Anas Sarwar, the new Scottish Labour leader, used First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood to challenge her on whether she agreed that “any minister who is found in breach” of the code should resign – the usual sanction.

But Ms Sturgeon refused to provide any guarantee she would quit, instead telling MSPS that “we can debate in this chamber” what her punishment should be if she is found to have flouted the code.

A report by the Holyrood inquiry into the Salmond debacle and an independent investigation into her alleged breaches of the code, conducted by Irish lawyer James Hamilton QC, are due to be published shortly.

If her punishment for a breach of the code were put to a Holyrood vote, the First Minister could theoretically stay in her post if her minority government wins the backing of the pro-independence Greens.

Her intervention followed fiery exchanges with Ruth Davidson in which the Scottish Tories’ Holyrood leader said there was “no argument” that Ms Sturgeon had broken the code and the only debate was “only about how badly she broke it”.

Alleging the Scottish Government withheld key documents from its own lawyers during Ms Salmond’s judicial review case, Ms Davidson concluded: “We believe that the sanction is to go. Why doesn’t she?”

Ms Sturgeon retorted that she had “answered every question that was put to me” during more than eight hours of testimony to the Holyrood inquiry investigating the scandal during a marathon appearance on Wednesday.