First Minister Alex Salmond has claimed that yesterday's hearing in the Local Government Committee over the issue of the calling-in of the Trump golf development in Aberdeenshire cleared him and Cabinet Secretary John Swinney of wrong-doing. 

Salmond also called on Liberal Democrat leader Nicol Stephen to withdraw accusations made in the chamber that there was an element of “sleaze” over the handling of the affair.

“The person responsible for those comments should withdraw them for the sake of his own reputation,” said Salmond.

After the Committee session, Salmond said he was confident he had been “wholly vindicated by the evidence today.”

In a sometimes heated session, Salmond repeated that every time he had dealt with the issue of the Trump development, he had been careful to inform parties he was doing so in his capacity as constituency MSP.

“What I had done at every meeting was tell people what I can and can’t do,” he said.

Salmond said that Trump representatives were concerned about “reputational damage” if they appealed the decision of Aberdeenshire Council’s infrastructure committee, as they did not want to be seen to be appealing ‘over the heads’ of the local council.