Two former Cabinet ministers have raised concerns about the proposed appointment of Australian Carol Mills as a senior parliament official.
Former foreign secretaries Jack Straw and Dame Margaret Beckett have added their voices to a cross-party campaign for Ms Mills to face a confirmation hearing of MPs before the Commons clerk appointment is made.
Meanwhile, Ms Mills has broken her silence over an email from the Australian clerk of the senate, Rosemary Laing, which warned that she had no "parliamentary knowledge or experience" and should not be appointed.
Ms Mills, head of the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) in Canberra, is believed to have been recommended for the prestigious role following a recruitment process with a selection panel led by Speaker John Bercow.
She said she was disappointed to read the missive from Ms Laing. "It would not be appropriate for me to comment further in a personal capacity at this time," she said.
"As a senior parliamentary officer, I take seriously my responsibilities to promote and uphold the values and code of conduct articulated in the Commonwealth of Australia Parliamentary Service Act 1999."
Ms Laing apparently cited an incident in which the Australian Department of Parliamentary Services confirmed it had used CCTV cameras to retrace the movements of a DPS employee and show her pushing an envelope under the door of a senator's office late at night.
The episode has been referred to the senate privileges committee for inquiry.
Referring to the Westminster role, Ms Mills said: "I have declined to confirm or comment upon my candidacy to date, as the selection process has not concluded."
Concerns have been raised about Ms Mills's ability to fulfil the role as adviser on parliamentary procedure and constitutional matters, with former speaker Baroness Boothroyd previously warning she would be "totally out of her depth".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article