Alex Salmond used taxpayers' money to fund a "political vanity project", Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander has claimed.
The First Minister announced this week that he had referred himself to the independent panel of advisers on the Scottish Ministerial Code on his stance on legal advice over an independent Scotland's future in Europe.
A row erupted after Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon revealed the SNP administration had only recently commissioned specific legal advice on the issue when Mr Salmond appeared to suggest such advice had been taken in an earlier television interview with the BBC's Andrew Neil.
MEP Catherine Stihler had previously submitted a Freedom of Information request to try to ascertain what legal advice, if any, had been given to the Scottish Government. Ministers took the case to the Court of Session to try to prevent the release of any information.
Speaking on the BBC's Sunday Politics Show, Mr Alexander said there are "immediate questions" for Mr Salmond to answer.
He said: "I think he has to answer the question why it was that he allowed thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money to be invested in paying lawyers to prepare a court case to prevent him releasing legal advice that it turned out didn't exist on Scotland's EU (European Union) membership.
"I think his accounting officer has questions to answer too. After all, there are rules about public finances in this country which means that you shouldn't just waste taxpayers' money on politicians' vanity projects. This is one of the most extraordinary episodes we've seen so far."
The First Minister said on Thursday that he would accept the findings of the investigation and hoped all MSPs would do the same. Mr Salmond added that the ministerial code had previously prevented him from saying whether or not his Government had sought legal advice on the matter.
A spokesman for the First Minister said: "Labour has form for rejecting the findings of ministerial code investigations. There have been five investigations since the SNP came to power. In each case, the First Minister was found not to have breached the code yet Labour either failed to accept the outcome or explicitly rejected the findings."
Scottish Conservative chief whip John Lamont said: "This row is not going to go away for the First Minister, no matter how hard he twists and turns. Referring himself for investigation is merely a smokescreen to deflect from the fact he has been less than straight with the Scottish people on whether a separate Scotland would automatically become part of the EU."
Salmond in 'vanity project' row
Alex Salmond used taxpayers' money to fund a "political vanity project", Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander has claimed.
The First Minister announced this week that he had referred himself to the independent panel of advisers on the Scottish Ministerial Code on his stance on legal advice over an independent Scotland's future in Europe.
A row erupted after Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon revealed the SNP administration had only recently commissioned specific legal advice on the issue when Mr Salmond appeared to suggest such advice had been taken in an earlier television interview with the BBC's Andrew Neil.
MEP Catherine Stihler had previously submitted a Freedom of Information request to try to ascertain what legal advice, if any, had been given to the Scottish Government. Ministers took the case to the Court of Session to try to prevent the release of any information.
Speaking on the BBC's Sunday Politics Show, Mr Alexander said there are "immediate questions" for Mr Salmond to answer.
He said: "I think he has to answer the question why it was that he allowed thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money to be invested in paying lawyers to prepare a court case to prevent him releasing legal advice that it turned out didn't exist on Scotland's EU (European Union) membership.
"I think his accounting officer has questions to answer too. After all, there are rules about public finances in this country which means that you shouldn't just waste taxpayers' money on politicians' vanity projects. This is one of the most extraordinary episodes we've seen so far."
The First Minister said on Thursday that he would accept the findings of the investigation and hoped all MSPs would do the same. Mr Salmond added that the ministerial code had previously prevented him from saying whether or not his Government had sought legal advice on the matter.
Political opponents have continued to attack the First Minister over the issue. Scottish Conservative chief whip John Lamont said: "This row is not going to go away for the First Minister, no matter how hard he twists and turns. Referring himself for investigation is merely a smokescreen to deflect from the fact he has been less than straight with the Scottish people on whether a separate Scotland would automatically become part of the EU."
Anas Sarwar, deputy leader of Scottish Labour, said: "It now appears that when Alex Salmond is given advice by his legal team on Scotland's future in the EU, he chooses to ignore it and asserts the opposite. We can no longer have any faith in the First Minister's account of what Scotland would look like if people were to vote Yes: not on Europe, not on currency, not on people's mortgages and not on defence."
The Press Association, photo by -SiPeKi-