Nicola Sturgeon set to be quizzed by MPs as date for grilling agreed

Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed a date to appear in front of the House of Commons select committee, after having previously cancelled an evidence session.

Sturgeon, who resigned as First Minister last year after eight years in the role, will appear on July 1 as part of the committee’s probe into intergovernmental relations in the first 25 years of devolution.

Former first ministers Alex Salmond, Jack McConnell and Henry McLeish have already appeared before the committee.

Former prime ministers Tony Blair and Lord Cameron have also provided written evidence to the committee.

Sturgeon was due to appear on April 29, but it was announced the previous week her evidence would be rescheduled due to her “availability”.

She cancelled just hours after her husband Peter Murrell was charged in connection with embezzlement of SNP funds

The former first minister’s relationship with the UK Government under Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss was strained as a result of her push for another independence referendum for Scotland was repeatedly rejected by successive administrations.

She is expected to face questions about her relations with Westminster,

Former Scottish secretary David Mundell has claimed that it was under the leadership of Sturgeon that Edinburgh officials became “unhelpful and disruptive”.

He said: “There is no doubt that over the period of time that Nicola Sturgeon was first minister of Scotland she became much more difficult to deal with.”

The MP claimed the then first minster became “much more strident and difficult to deal with” after the Brexit vote.

He said there was a period of “obstruction” from the Scottish Government.

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Mundell also said he noticed a greater sense of “Scottish exceptionalism” after the referendum.

He added: “In the latter part of my tenure, the view coming from Edinburgh was ‘we’re just going to do everything ourselves because we can’.”