ALEX SALMOND’S Government “stretched credulity” with its position on European Union legal advice, according to an independent report.
However, the investigation found the First Minister acted fully in accordance with the Scottish ministerial code over the debate on the existence or content of legal advice on an independent Scotland’s membership of the EU.
Report author Sir David Bell, an independent adviser to the Scottish Government on the ministerial code, said Mr Salmond’s attempts to describe the process of legal underpinning were “somewhat muddled and incomplete”.
Sir David examined five separate grounds of complaint from Labour MEP Catherine Stihler and in each case found the First Minister and Scottish Government had acted fully in accordance with the ministerial code.
He also recommended ministers consider whether the part of the code relating to legal advice could be redrafted in a clearer and more accessible form, a recommendation the Government has accepted, and said “the Edinburgh Agreement was the appropriate moment to seek specific legal advice from the law officers”.
Mr Salmond said: “I welcome the report which demonstrates that I and the rest of the Scottish Government acted entirely in accordance with the Scottish ministerial code. I also welcome (Sir David’s) conclusion that the signing of the Edinburgh Agreement was the appropriate moment at which to seek specific legal advice on an independent Scotland’s continued membership of the European Union.”
He added: “This has been the sixth complaint to be referred to the independent panel of advisers I introduced in 2008 to rule on these matters.
“I am delighted that each complaint has been dismissed and the advisers concluded my ministers and I have acted entirely properly at all times.”
Opposition politicians have pointed to the report’s criticism of Mr Salmond’s answers when asked directly about legal advice during a TV interview.
The report states: “Responding as you did, you got off on the wrong foot, so that your attempt afterward to describe the underpinning process was somewhat muddled and incomplete and later became confused with references to the conventions protecting other forms of legal advice.”
It later adds: “But given that the Government had received by any common-sense definition of the term legal advice, then it stretched credulity to have argued that it held ‘no information’.”
Mrs Stihler said: “Reading this report it is difficult not to conclude what we have said all along. Alex Salmond said he had legal advice on Scotland’s relationship with the EU when he hadn’t even sought it.”
Labour MSP Paul Martin said: “The First Minister got to pick the judge in this case and he got to pick the charges. And yet even in those circumstances Salmond is found to have evaded questions and used muddle and confusion.
“Yet bare-faced Salmond has the brass neck to crow that this report completely clears him. The truth is, as this report shows, you cannot trust the words which come out of Alex Salmond’s mouth.”
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said: “Mr Salmond might think this puts him in the clear, but actually he comes out of it with even less credibility than he had before.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: “(Alex Salmond) clearly misled over whether he had legal advice on an independent Scotland’s place in the EU and was caught red handed.”
kiandrews@thecourier.co.uk