A Fife MP is continuing attempts to discover if chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander inappropriately interfered with the decision to close RAF Leuchars.
Dunfermline and West Fife MP Thomas Docherty is to lodge a parliamentary question in a bid to get to the bottom of the suggestion made by Mr Alexander’s Liberal Democrat colleague Sir Menzies Campbell.
The Ministry of Defence has already been asked to investigate the North East Fife MP’s claim Mr Alexander used his political clout to have Leuchars closed in order to save RAF Lossiemouth.
Mr Alexander’s Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey seat borders the Moray base and many of his constituents work there.
There have also been suggestions Mr Alexander could be in breach of the ministerial code, which states ministers must “avoid any conflict of interests” when dealing with issues which impact on their constituency.
Mr Alexander has not explicitly responded to the allegations, although the Treasury did issue a statement insisting the decision was made on military and economic grounds.
Now Mr Docherty is to lodge a question asking for a complete list of occasions on which Mr Alexander, political advisers and civil servants discussed the future of the RAF base.
The MP told The Courier he hoped the answer would provide closure for the Leuchars community.
“The silence from Danny Alexander is deafening,” he said. “What we need now is clarity. I am seeking answers, on the record, as to exactly what was said and when between the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence.”
He added: “It is doing a great disservice to the Fife community for this to continue on any longer than necessary and the Treasury must come clean.”
The furore follows an unprecedented attack on Mr Alexander by his party colleague, Sir Menzies, over how the Government’s defence review was conducted.
The former Lib Dem leader implied Mr Alexander interfered in the basing review to “assist (his) political credibility” in his parliamentary seat.
Sir Menzies said: “It’s a remarkable coincidence that these decisions should have been thought to assist the political credibility of the chief secretary to the Treasury, or is it?”
The accusation was the culmination of an increasingly bitter feud between the Lib Dem politicians, which earlier in the summer forced party bosses to bring them together for a clear-the-air meeting.