Moray row over Alex Salmond legal advice
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Richard Lochhead has been questioned about why he voted against publishing legal advice received by the SNP government in the Alex Salmond case.
The SNP were defeated in Holyrood yesterday after the Greens joined the opposition parties in backing a motion calling for its publication.
Mr Lochhead, who previously worked for Mr Salmond when he was MP for Banff and Buchan, voted against the motion which was carried by 63 votes to 54.
Moray's MP Douglas Ross said: "Surely the public have a right to know exactly what happened in the run-up to the government’s defeat in the Court of Session?
"More than £500,000 of public money was lost in this debacle.
"That is taxpayers’ money that could have been invested in our schools and hospitals.
"It has now been confirmed that Scottish Government lawyers knew several months previously that they were going to lose the case, but ministers pressed ahead regardless.
"SNP Ministers have repeatedly demanded that the UK Government publish legal advice and cannot credibly claim that this level of scrutiny should not apply at Holyrood.
"Richard Lochhead and his SNP colleagues should explain why they are so determined to keep this legal advice secret.
"What do they have to hide?"
In August last year the Scottish government paid out more than £500,000 in legal expenses to Mr Salmond.
It admitted breaching its own guidelines after the former First Minister challenged how allegations against him were handled during an internal party investigation.
Then, in March, Mr Salmond was found not guilty by a jury of 12 charges of attempted rape, sexual assault and indecent assault.
A verdict of not proven was given on a further charge of sexual assault with intent to rape.
Mr Lochhead said: "The government is regularly involved in litigation and decision making, as part of normal, good government.
"It’s important that legal advice given to ministers and government officials is both full and frank, and not affected by concerns about it becoming public.
"It’s also important to note that the Scottish Government and the UK Government take a very similar approach when it comes to making legal advice public."
A Holyrood committee has recently resumed its investigation of the Scottish government's handling of complaints against Mr Salmond.
Mr Lochhead continued: "Over the last few months the Scottish Government has provided the committee with over a thousand pages of relevant material and witnesses have provided over 14 hours of oral evidence to date.
"Whilst the work of the committee is important, I’d advise Mr Ross to spend more time on the unprecedented challenges facing our constituents right now – I think that is what they expect of us."
