A MEMBER of the Holyrood inquiry into the Alex Salmond affair has claimed it has new “significant and detailed evidence” suggesting Nicola Sturgeon misled parliament.

Liberal Democrat MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton said a separate investigation into whether the First Minister broke the ministerial code should be widened to take it into account.

He urged the Scottish Government to widen the remit of the ethics probe immediately.

Mr Cole-Hamilton made the claim as MSPs debated whether the Scottish Government should publish its legal advice behind its courtroom battle with Mr Salmond.

Holyrood later voted 63 to 54 on a Tory motion to demand that SNP ministers should indeed release it.

Mr Cole-Hamilton said that if his amendment had been selected he would have set out why MSPs should also direct the Government to expand the remit of the ministerial code inquiry.

The ethics investigation stems from Mr Salmond’s legal battle with the Government over its probe into claims of sexual misconduct made against him in 2018.

Mr Salmond had the exercise set aside in a judicial review, showing it had been “tainted by apparent bias”, a flaw that left taxpayers with a £512,000 bill for his costs.

After the Government’s defence collapsed in January 2019, Ms Sturgeon revealed she had three meetings and two phone calls with Mr Salmond while her officials investigated him.

Opposition parties claim she broke the Scottish ministerial code by failing to report these meetings fully and timeously to the relevant officials. 

She has also been accused of misleading parliament with incomplete and improbable statements. 

Mr Cole-Hamilton said that James Hamilton, the independent investigator on the code, had only been been charged with looking at the contacts between Ms Sturgeon and Mr Salmond connected to the complaints against him and the Government’s investigation. 

He said: “However, significant and detailed evidence has been passed to our inquiry that casts doubt on the First Minister’s version of events. 

“For legal reasons, the evidence cannot yet be published, but I know that I speak for colleagues when I say that, when we saw it, we recognised the immediate need for the ministerial code referral to be expanded to examine whether Nicola Sturgeon knowingly misled the Parliament under the terms of section 1.3(c).

“This is a quasi-judicial process and the only body that can expand its remit is the Government itself, so I ask it to do that today.”

Section 1.3(c) of the Scottish Ministerial Code states: “It is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to the Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead the Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the First Minister.”

In written evidence to the inquiry, Ms Sturgeon claimed she didn't tells MSPs about an explosive meeting about Mr Salmond and misconduct as she had “forgotten” about it. 

The FM said the meeting featured “allegations of a sexual nature” and left her feeling Mr Salmond was “in considerable distress” and might well resign from the SNP.

He also wanted to speak to her “urgently about a serious matter”.

However, despite the far-reaching implications and the potentially seismic effect on her party and Government, Ms Sturgeon claimed the meeting later slipped her mind.

“I think the meeting took place not long after the weekly session of FMQs and in the midst of a busy day in which I would have been dealing with a multitude of other matters,” she said. 

It was only after she had told parliament, on 8 January 2019, about the other contacts with Mr Salmond about sexual misconduct that she was later “reminded of it”, either in late January or early February 2019.

It was not until August this year that the Scottish Government formally confirmed it. 

This was after it had emerged during Mr Salmond’s criminal trial - at which he was acquitted of 13 counts of sexual assault in March - that the meeting took place.

Geoff Aberdein, Mr Salmond’s former chief of staff, revealed he had met Ms Sturgeon at the Scottish Parliament on 29 March 2018, four days before she met Mr Salmond at her home on 2 April, where he told her he was under investigation.

This meeting with Mr Aberdein was never mentioned by Ms Sturgeon in parliament in 2019.

Labour MSP Jackie Baillie has claimed the meeting was also “removed” from the FM’s ministerial diary, and has asked her to explain the mystery “fully and honestly”.

Ms Baillie last month tabled a series of parliamentary questions to get to the bottom of the matter, including asking when the meeting “was first placed in the ministerial diary, by whom, and on whose instruction” and when it was “removed from the ministerial diary, by whom, and on whose instruction”.

Last month, Mr Salmond also said the ethics probe should be expanded to look at whether Ms Sturgeon misled Holyrood, failed to heed legal advice and failed to keep officials truthful. 

It led to the First Minister saying Mr Hamilton was free to look at “any issues” beyond the initial remit set by deputy FM John Swinney.

She said: “If he thinks there are any issues that engage the ministerial code, or in any way could constitute a breach if the ministerial code, my view is that he is free to look at them.”

The Scottish Government denies the First Minister misled parliament.

A spokesman said last month: “The First Minister stands by what she has said to Parliament and by her written evidence to the committee, and looks forward to answering questions at the committee when they decide to ask her to appear.”