THE Holyrood inquiry into the Scottish Government’s botched handling of harassment complaints against Alex Salmond has been thrown into chaos.

MSPs on the committee narrowly voted against publishing the former First Minister’s dossier alleging Nicola Sturgeon broke the ministerial code. It’s understood the vote was wafer-thin, with just the four SNP MSPs plus the independent Andy Wightman voting against publication.

The rest of the committee, Tory MSPs Murdo Fraser and Margaret Mitchell, LibDem Alex Cole-Hamilton, and Labour’s Jackie Baillie voted for the document to be published.

The result means Salmond will almost certainly not appear in front of the inquiry. He was supposed to be giving evidence at yesterday’s session but said publication of the allegations was necessary for him to be able to tell the whole truth.

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 cleared on 12 charges brought against him.

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, has been 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.

Fraser said the vote would “only raise suspicions among the wider public that the SNP Government have had no intention of being fully transparent with this inquiry despite what the First Minister has said previously.”

However, an SNP spokesperson said publishing the document would have led to the women who complained about Salmond being identified. The spokesperson said: “It is deeply troubling that opposition committee members voted in favour of publishing Mr Salmond’s submission contrary to legal advice that to do so – even in redacted form – would be in breach of court orders regarding identification of women complainers.

“The decision to support publication against legal advice is made all the more incomprehensible in light of the views expressed by Rape Crisis Scotland and others over the past days and weeks.”