Salmond: London's problem

Alex Salmond has put the blame for the Holyrood building project at the door of Tony Blair's government.

Giving evidence to the Fraser inquiry, the former SNP leader said the project was in chaos before the Scottish parliament was established in 1999.

Salmond believes that the UK government deliberately concealed the true cost of the new parliament for political reasons.

Donald Dewar, the late first minister who was Scottish secretary prior to devolution, initially estimated the Holyrood building to cost £40 million.

But the real cost of the project, which is now months behind schedule, is likely to break the £400 million barrier.

Salmond told the inquiry that he thought Dewar had "improperly" introduced the Holyrood site into the shortlist in late 1997.

The SNP's Westminster leader told the inquiry that he "smelled a rat" when Dewar announced late in the day that Scottish and Newcastle brewery had offered their site.

He said the alternative Calton Hill site was written off by Labour as a "Nationalist Shibboleth".

And Salmond claimed that Dewar had effectively ruled out the two other possible sites for the parliament - giving the Holyrood site a de facto green light.

Speaking ahead of his appearance before Lord Fraser, Salmond said no single individual was to blame.

"When the Holyrood project was handed over to the Scottish parliament it was totally and utterly out of control and key people on the project team, and presumably before them in the Scottish Office, concealed that," he said this morning.

The Labour government's approach did much to damage confidence in the new devolved parliament, the Westminster MP told the BBC.

"Even before the democracy had a chance to be born, here was a decision foisted down from on high," he said.

"But I've never argued that this was the fault of once single person, Donald Dewar, in sharp contrast to some people who at that time were his advisors and so called friends.

"I've argued it is much more about a process of decision making, an old, discredited, top-down process of decision making, that had no place in the new Scotland."