The Scottish Tories have lodged a motion of no confidence in Deputy First Minister John Swinney over the Alex Salmond Inquiry legal advice row.
MSPs have twice voted to compel the Scottish Government to produce legal advice taken as part of the legal challenge brought by Salmond over its harassment complaints procedure.
However, ministers have so far not handed the advice over and Swinney, who has dealt with the issue for the Government, now faces a risk to his job.
The Scottish Government's investigation into sexual harassment complaints against Salmond was ruled to be unlawful and “tainted with apparent bias” by a court.
MSPs want to know when the Government knew its legal defence was doomed.
The Tories have now submitted the motion, which is expected to be voted on this week:
It reads: "That the Parliament has 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."
Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said: “Women were let down and more than £500,000 of taxpayers’ money was lost.
“The public deserves to know what happened and the legal advice is crucial to uncovering what mistakes were made.
“We gave John Swinney one more opportunity to respect the will of the Scottish Parliament. He has failed to do so.
“Opposition parties have united twice already to demand the legal advice is released. We now call on them to do so a third time.
“We are still willing to withdraw this motion at any point, if the government respects the will of the Scottish Parliament and publishes the legal advice.”
The Scottish Lib Dems and Labour will back the motion, which means the Greens are the kingmaker.
Lib Dem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “There is a simple way for John Swinney to avoid another no confidence vote and that is to release the legal advice as parliament has twice made very clear it expects him to do.
“The Scottish Government have gone out of their way to obstruct the investigation into their handling of some very serious allegations.
“This displays contempt for our parliament and a casual disregard for all those who have raised concerns or are considering whether to do so in the future.”
