Alex Salmond will not appear at Holyrood inquiry on Tuesday

Alex Salmond will not appear before the committee investigating the botched handling of complaints against him tomorrow, it has been confirmed. 

The former first minister has "raised a number of issues for clarification", a parliament spokeswoman said, which means the evidence session will not go ahead as planned.

Salmond has been at odds with the committee over the publication of a submission he had made to a separate investigation, in which he had accused Nicola Sturgeon of misleading parliament. 

A Scottish Parliament statement said: "Mr Salmond has not confirmed that he will attend the committee meeting on Tuesday and he has raised a number of issues for clarification. Tuesday’s evidence session will therefore not go ahead.

"Mr Salmond had been contacted to make it clear that he can speak freely in committee about all of his contact with Nicola Sturgeon and his views on her actions. 

"He was given the opportunity to make a lengthy opening statement on Tuesday and would have had four hours to answer questions in public. He was also invited to send more written evidence for publication after the meeting.

"The committee has already published two lengthy submissions from Mr Salmond and many, many pages of records and documents from him that he has been invited to speak freely about in parliament on Tuesday. All of this written and oral evidence could then be reflected in the committee’s report.

"The committee continues to communicate with Mr Salmond’s representatives."

The inquiry was set up to look into what went wrong with the government's handling of complaints against Salmond, which the Court of Session had deemed "unlawful". 

A date for Salmond to give evidence had finally been set after letters were sent back and forth between convener Linda Fabiani and the former first minister - who initially disagreed on when the meeting should take place. 

MSPs took evidence from Peter Murrell today - the SNP chief executive was appearing for a second time.