Scottish Labour’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie has written to the Scottish Government’s Independent Advisers on the Ministerial Code urging them to investigate a potential breach by the Lord Advocate. The intervention comes after it emerged that Dorothy Bain KC sent a private minute to the First Minister in January warning about contempt of court risks in relation to proceedings against Peter Murrell, Nicola Sturgeon’s estranged husband.
The memo also detailed that Murrell was accused of embezzling almost £460,000 from the SNP over 13 years. That figure first became public when the Scottish Sun reported on the indictment on February 13, weeks after the memo was shared within government.
What makes this particularly sensitive is that the Lord Advocate’s minute was passed on to Colin McAllister, the First Minister’s chief of staff, who is a political appointee rather than a civil servant. Baillie’s concern is that prosecutorial information not available to the public or media was shared with SNP political advisers, creating a potential advantage.
“A core requirement of the Ministerial Code is that Ministers provide Parliament with honest and accurate information,” Baillie wrote. “I am concerned that the Lord Advocate’s handling of this matter raises serious questions about the accuracy of what was said to Parliament and whether the First Minister and his political advisers received access to prosecutorial information that was not available to the public and media.”
The episode has reignited longstanding calls for the Lord Advocate’s dual role to be split. Currently, the Lord Advocate serves as both head of the independent prosecution service and as a member of the Scottish Government in the role of chief legal adviser. Critics argue two separate people should hold these roles to prevent any conflict of interest. The current Lord Advocate has already stepped away from decisions in Murrell’s case, just as her predecessor James Wolffe removed himself from decisions relating to the prosecution of Alex Salmond. That pattern alone suggests the structural problem is real and recurring.