Nicola Sturgeon faced demands to apologise for misleading MSPs over the EU payments debacle.
The Scottish Government is struggling to meet Friday’s deadline to distribute the farming subsidies.
Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, said the First Minister “refused to tell this parliament what she knew to be the truth” when she was asked directly on Thursday last week if Brussels had been contacted about extending the deadline.
At First Minister’s Questions today, Ms Davidson accused the FM of breaching ministerial rules over accuracy and transparency.
The Conservative MSP said: “Last week the FM had to apologise to farmers for messing up their payments again. But now she owes the parliament an apology for not being straight about it.”
It emerged last week that the Scottish Government had contacted the European Commission on Tuesday last week about the possibility of moving the payments deadline back.
Ms Sturgeon denied she had been economical with the truth.
“Last week I said we were discussing with the European Commission, contingencies around this issue,” she said.
“That is exactly what we were doing. It’s what we continue to do – seeking an extension in case we require that extension is exactly that, a contingency.”
She added: “We are working flat to deliver these payments. We are seeing rapid daily progress in making these payments made.”
Farmers have been forced to wait months for cash because of the botched roll-out of a £178 IT system.
The Scottish Government risks a multi-million pound fine if it cannot meet the deadline or negotiate an extension.
Ms Sturgeon said 82% of the total claims had been made as of Thursday morning, up from 58% two weeks ago.
She added her government had put in a loans system so that farmers received 80% of their entitlement in advance of the full payment.
