John Swinney survives vote of no confidence in Holyrood

Mr Swinney has come under pressure over the release of legal advice relating to Alex Salmond's judicial review against the Scottish Government.

He insisted the motion of no confidence was "entirely baseless". 

But critics accused Mr Swinney and the Scottish Government of undermining the credibility of Holyrood – and threatened a further vote of no confidence on a separate matter.

Mr Swinney is the first minister in the history of devolution to have faced two no-confidence votes.

He survived one last year following the exam results debacle, also with the support of the Greens.

The Tories accused the Greens of being "bought and sold for SNP gold", referencing the recent budget deal.

But addressing MSPs, Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said: "The shallow game of winning political scalps should not be anyone's priority and the Greens will have no part in it."

Tory MSP Miles Briggs accused SNP ministers of "undermining the credibility of our Scottish Parliament and the ability of this parliament to hold the government to account".

He said: "The Deputy First Minister may indeed survive this vote of no confidence tonight.

"But the damage the SNP have inflicted on this institution will be longer term."

The Tories first tabled their no-confidence threat two weeks ago, forcing Mr Swinney to release legal advice relating to Mr Salmond's judicial review.

Mr Swinney acted after it became clear opposition parties would back the Tory motion.

MSPs had twice voted for the legal advice to be released.

A Holyrood inquiry is looking into how the Government botched its probe into sexual misconduct allegations made against Mr Salmond in 2018.

Mr Salmond had the exercise set aside in a judicial review after the Government conceded it was unlawful and "tainted by apparent bias", an error that left taxpayers with a £512,000 bill for his legal costs.

He was later cleared of multiple charges of sexual assault at the High Court in Edinburgh.

The Tories insist Mr Swinney ignored two votes in Holyrood, withheld evidence until after Nicola Sturgeon appeared at the inquiry committee, and still hasn’t supplied the Salmond inquiry with the evidence it wants.

The party's motion stated that MSPs have "no confidence in the Deputy First Minister, in light of the Scottish Government's continued failure to publish legal advice called for in two resolutions of the Parliament on 4 and 25 November 2020".

Speaking in Holyrood, Scottish Labour deputy leader and committee member Jackie Baillie said: “Supporting a motion of no confidence is never done lightly, but the abysmal failings of the Scottish Government and John Swinney on this matter left us with no choice.

“Despite the promises from the First Minister, our nation’s parliament and the committee have been treated with contempt."

Liberal Democrat MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton threatened a further vote of no confidence if Mr Swinney does not release a report on Scotland's secondary school system which MSPs have also asked to be published.

Mr Swinney said the Scottish Government has now released "all of the formal written advice notes received from external counsel", as well as emails and other documents.

He said minutes of meetings requested by the committee simply do not exist.

He said what has been released "paints a clear picture, warts and all – no embarrassment for the Government is spared on the publication of these documents".

Mr Swinney added: "It is worth reflecting for a moment on the significance of what the Government has done in this case.

"We've taken the extraordinary and unprecedented step of publishing formal legal advice of the kind which no previous Government in Scotland has done.

"And we have done so in response to the requests of the committee and motions passed by parliament.

"On any fair interpretation of what the Government has done, the Tories' pursuit of this motion today is now entirely baseless."

He said the Government has accepted that mistakes were made in the handling of the complaints against Mr Salmond and that the women were "badly let down".