ALEX Salmond has pulled out of today’s session of the Holyrood inquiry into the Government’s botched harassment probe after the committee refused to publish his allegations that Nicola Sturgeon misled Parliament.

His lawyer said he could still appear at a later date but only if MSPs “set out the totality of the restrictions” upon his evidence.

The cross-party committee is investigating the Scottish Government’s flawed probe into allegations of misconduct made against Salmond by two civil servants. He had the exercise set aside in January 2019, with a judicial review declaring it “unlawful” and “tainted by bias”. The Government’s botched handling ultimately cost the taxpayer half a million pounds.

At a later criminal case the former SNP leader was found not guilty on 12 charges.

Following the Scottish Government’s concession of the judicial review, Sturgeon referred herself to the independent advisers on the Ministerial Code over claims she had broken strict rules by failing to swiftly declare the three meetings and two phone calls with Salmond about the harassment complaints. Scottish Government guidelines say that when discussing official business “any significant content” should be reported back to private offices.

James Hamilton, a former director of public prosecutions in Ireland, was tasked with investigating the First Minister’s actions.

In his submission to the Hamilton inquiry, Salmond claimed the First Minister had “repeatedly misled” MSPs about meetings between the two at Sturgeon’s home.

Much, if not all of the submission, is already in the public domain.

But the committee decided against publishing the submission as it failed to “comply with relevant court orders”.

Salmond’s team said that the decision meant the submission couldn’t “even be considered for inclusion in the Committee’s report”.

A Scottish Parliament spokesperson rejected that yesterday, saying Salmond would not have been prevented from referring to the detail in the majority of the document.

They said: “Mr Salmond had been contacted to make it clear that he can speak freely in committee about all of his contact with Nicola Sturgeon and his views on her actions.

“He was given the opportunity to make a lengthy opening statement on Tuesday and would have had four hours to answer questions in public. He was also invited to send more written evidence for publication after the meeting.”

In a letter to committee convener Linda Fabiani, Salmond’s lawyer called the decision not to publish the submission “absurd”.

David McKie from Levy & McRae told the MSP his client was still “willing to give evidence to the committee at any point up to the final date for evidence” but needed clarity over restrictions in place.

Without that, the lawyer said, Salmond risked being placed “in legal jeopardy”.

He added: “Asking a witness to accept the constraints of speaking only to evidence selected by you on the undisclosed advice and direction of unidentified others is not acceptable in any forum and is, in our client’s view, particularly offensive when the remit he seeks to address has been set for you by Parliament and addresses the unlawful actions of an elected Government and the needless squandering of hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money.”

There’s speculation that Salmond may hold a press conference today in a bid to get his side of the story over – though that hadn’t been confirmed at the time of going to print.