By Steve Bargeton, political editor

FIRST MINISTER Donald Dewar may have deliberately lied to MSPs when they narrowly voted to press ahead with the Holyrood project just weeks after being elected.

That was the devastating suggestion made by Lord Fraser of Carmyllie when his inquiry into the fiasco resumed yesterday.

His comments came as he pressed a top civil servant over how millions of pounds were apparently wiped off the estimated cost of the building just before Mr Dewar faced a crucial vote that could have halted the scheme in its tracks.

Quantity surveyors Davis Langdon & Everest (DLE) had warned civil servants that the building was heading towards £90 million with additional costs taking the final figure up to £127 million.

But in June 1999 Mr Dewar told MSPs it would cost £62 million to build and the total cost would be £109 million.

Lord Fraser wanted to know why, and yesterday he closely questioned top civil servant Robert Gordon, who led the Constitution Unit of the Scottish Office prior to devolution, for answers.

“When Mr Dewar reported £62 million leading up to £109 million, that was a less than true figure in his mind and, therefore, Parliamentarians were misled,” Lord Fraser put it to him.

“No, that was the true figure in his mind,” insisted Mr Gordon, although he did concede that, “There was a discussion that it might not be possible to bring the project in at that cost.”

Lord Fraser noted that the late First Minister had been briefed on the costs just before “a very tight fight” in Parliament over whether the project should go ahead.

“It needs to be explained as to whether that figure was one he honestly believed might be the true cost of the Parliament or, alternatively, was he being given one which he could properly tell the Scottish Parliament that it was going to be £109 million. As yet I don’t know what’s the case.

“I’d be extremely unwilling to come to the conclusion that the First Minister deliberately misled Parliament and that’s why I am pressing quite hard to try to understand whether it’s reasonable for him to have put forward that figure.”

Mr Gordon defended his former boss for whom, he said, he would “have jumped through fiery hoops”.

“I do not for a moment believe that the Secretary of State deliberately misled Parliament,” he said.

“The Secretary of State was not deliberately misleading Parliament and we were not deliberately misleading the Secretary of State.”

Mr Gordon said the advice on costings had been ignored because project managers believed the rising bills were down to high standards of finishes and extra design features like balustrades which could be dumped.

“It was for the project team to seek to manage the costs. At the end of the day judgments have to be made,” he said.

“The judgment was made in this case that these elements were not elements that should be reflected in an increased budget because the budget then would have to be found.

“I am absolutely sure that ministers reached the right decision in deciding that Parliament should be £109 million based on the development of the design then.”

Earlier Mr Gordon told the inquiry that the decision to reinstate Bovis to the shortlist to build the Holyrood Parliament was “out of the ordinary”.

He confirmed that the Bovis bid had been more expensive than two other bidders but that it was reinstated against the wishes of professional advisers and it eventually won the contract.

It also emerged yesterday that the Scottish Office may have broken European procurement rules in the way it treated construction firm Sir Robert McAlpine during the competition for the construction manager contract.

The firm reached the final stages but lost out to rival Bovis, which was placed back into the running by Scottish Office project sponsor Barbara Doig, even though it had already been dumped by a panel of experts.

Sir Robert McAlpine director David Boyle said his team attended the final interview on January 4, 1998, knowing from industry sources that Bovis had been dropped in December and having been tipped off by insiders that they stood a very good chance.

He said, “We were talking here about the appointment for the final piece of the jigsaw of the project team, the construction manager, for a very prestigious, high profile job, but the questioning was very mundane and very flat.

“We didn’t get taxed at all to the extent that when we came out of the meeting and got into the car my team said ‘there’s something unusual, that was an unusual atmosphere, don’t you think so?’ and although I did, I didn’t say so.”

He said he then received a fax on January 7, saying that his firm had lost out and Bovis had won the multi-million pound contract. He said, “It was a bit of a shock because we had understood that Bovis had been eliminated at an earlier stage.”

The fax offered Sir Robert McAlpine a debriefing session, as required under European Union rules, and the company wrote asking for the session to “learn the lessons”.

After receiving no reply the firm wrote again in February requesting the debriefing and received a second letter from the Scottish Office apologising for the delay.

Again nothing happened and the firm wrote once more in April but this time received no reply and the debriefing never took place.

Mr Boyle said, “We were very disappointed and in spite of our efforts to get a debriefing—in fact we were entitled to have one—we didn’t get one.”