There were fresh calls for Education Secretary Mike Russell to quit on Thursday as a new college funding row flared up.
All three main opposition parties made the call after Tory leader Ruth Davidson questioned First Minister Alex Salmond over ”a £34 million single-year cash cut” in the 2013-14 draft budget.
During First Minister’s Questions, she also queried why figures quoted by the Parliament’s information service differed from the Government’s sums.
Mr Salmond said the figures were examined ”in great detail” and that these points were addressed in an explanation to the education committee.
He added: ”If Ruth Davidson would care to take a glance at what is happening south of the border and to the colleges there, then she would see why we are protecting the colleges of Scotland.”
Ms Davidson replied: ”Yet still no acknowledgement that when you are in charge of budgets in this country, and when your overall budget is reduced, and you cut the budget of colleges over a spending review period by significantly more … that any responsibility lies with this First Minister.”
The Conservatives also claimed the college budget was being cut by £50 million from last year to this year, as opposed to the £9 million admitted by Mr Salmond last week.
A spokesman for the Mr Russell later said the figures were ”nonsense” and accused Ms Davidson of ”twisting the truth”.
During a stormy FMQs, Mr Salmond accused opposition leaders of refusing to acknowledge the times when they have given false information to the chamber.
The row has rumbled on since last week when Mr Salmond was forced to apologise for reading out the wrong figure on college budgets.
Ms Lamont described the SNP leader as ”Pinocchio” and complained he frequently failed to answer questions she posed.
She said: ”The worrying thing about all of this isn’t that the First Minister allegedly got one specific figure wrong. If we are to believe him, it is that he didn’t know that he didn’t know if spending in Scotland’s colleges was going up or down.
”Which is worse? The First Minister is so incompetent he doesn’t know when spending is going up or down, or that he deliberately misled the people of Scotland and denied the impact of his choices on the workforce in the colleges and communities right across Scotland?”
Mr Salmond replied: ”The difference is this, that when a mistake was made both myself and the minister of education apologised to this chamber and corrected the mistake.
”The Labour Party never corrects their mistakes. They don’t correct the mistakes they make on a regular basis in this chamber.”
At a separate debate on college funding in the afternoon, all three main opposition parties called for Mr Russell to resign.
Lib Dem MSP Liam McArthur said: ”There’s no getting away from the fact that recent events have called into question the competence of the SNP Government and the judgment and approach of the education secretary himself.”
However, those shouts were once again rebuffed by both the SNP and Mr Russell.