KEIR STARMER, the UK Labour leader, said Nicola Sturgeon has set the standard for which she has adhere to and if she broke the ministerial code, it is the code which says a breach is a resignation matter.

Mr Starmer was in Glasgow to visit the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and meet front line staff and the teams working in the research facility.

Speaking to the Glasgow Times, he said: “We shouldn’t prejudge the report which is due next week but if it finds the First Minister misled parliament and broke the ministerial code that is incredibly serious. 

READ MORE: Labour and SNP in Glasgow City Council by election wins

“It goes to the office of First Minister. We don’t know yet. The code itself says you should resign and she wrote the foreword. She has set the standard.”

The Labour leader met with staff in Glasgow working on Covid vaccines and research into different variants.

He said: “It is humbling to meet those incredible front line staff who have worked on the covid wards and they have been through in the last year. dealing with the stress and anxiety of Covid.

Glasgow Times:
“The vaccine roll-out has been tremendous but there is a cause for concern over the supplies. We need more transparency from the Prime Minister of what the root cause of the problem is.”

Starmer was on visits with Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar.

On the day Labour won one council by-election in Glasgow and lost another, he said there were signs of a change from the new leadership.

He said the Partick East/Kelvindale result was “very pleasing”.

He added: “In the last three weeks since Anas Sarwar has been leader there is an energy and focus about Scottish Labour.

“There is a clear choice come May between, the Tories, who want to go back to where we were before the pandemic and the SNP, who want to go back to the division of an independence referendum, or Labour ,who want to focus on the recovery of education, health and jobs.”

Meanwhile Sturgeon has hit out at the Labour, Tory and LibDem members of the Holyrood committee investigating the handling of harassment complaints against former First Minister ALex Salmond.

Glasgow Times:

She said: "The opposition members of the committee made their minds up about me before I uttered a single word of evidence."

She said we should "wait for the report" and she added: "More importantly the question of whether or not I breached the ministerial code is being considered independently by James Hamilton QC, and I hope and expect to receive and publish that report soon."