Herald political reporter Tom Gordon is reporting today that Liberal Democrat Alex Cole-Hamilton, who sits on the Holyrood inquiry into the scandal, said the First Minister “may not have been entirely straight with her answers to parliament”.

The Edinburgh Western MSP said a separate investigation into whether Ms Sturgeon broke the ministerial code should be expanded to look at whether she misled MSPs.

“If she has, then that’s a resignation matter,” he said.

Mr Cole-Hamilton and other MSPs, including Jackie Baillie, the MSP for West Dunbartonshire, pictured left,  on a special Holyrood committee are investigating how the Scottish Government bungled a probe into claims of sexual misconduct made against Mr Salmond in 2018.

The former First Minister had the exercise set aside in court by showing it was “tainted by apparent bias”, a Government error that left taxpayers with a £512,000 bill for his costs.

After the Government’s case collapsed in January 2019, Ms Sturgeon told parliament she had had three meetings and two calls with Mr Salmond while he was under investigation.

She said the first of these was on 2 April 2018 at her home in Glasgow, and that Mr Salmond informed her he was being investigated by her officials.

However it later emerged at Mr Salmond’s separate criminal trial, at which he was acquitted of sexual assault, that Ms Sturgeon was alerted to the probe four days earlier.

Mr Salmond’s former chief of staff, Geoff Aberdein, testified that he has spoken to Ms Sturgeon about it in her Holyrood office on 29 March 2018.

The Scottish Government did not formally confirm this meeting until August this year.

In her written evidence to the Holyrood inquiry, Ms Sturgeon said she had “forgotten” about her meeting with Mr Aberdein, despite the explosive content, as it had been “in the midst of a busy day” after FMQs.

She said: “I had forgotten that this encounter had taken place until I was reminded of it in, I think, late January/early February 2019.”