Scotland’s permanent secretary Leslie Evans has been urged to consider her position in the wake of a damning report into how harassment complaints against Alex Salmond were handled.

Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour leader, said it was “not credible” that no-one had “taken responsibility” after a Holyrood report concluded the two women who made the allegations against the former first minister were “badly let down”.

Ms Evans, the Scottish government’s most senior civil servant, came in for criticism over her role in the bungled handling of the harassment complaints, which saw Mr Salmond win a payout of more than £500,000 from the Court of Session back in 2019.

While Nicola Sturgeon is said to still have confidence in Ms Evans, Mr Sarwar said the committee report, published earlier this week, was “unanimous in its views on the failures of government and the failures of the permanent secretary”.

The Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints said the government failed to identify all relevant documents “fully and promptly” in the case, with this identified as an “individual failing” by Ms Evans – who knew about the prior contact the investigating officer had had with the women and did not ensure the relevant information was made available sooner.

Mr Salmond announced on Wednesday he plans to take legal action against Ms Evans, insisting such a move was necessary to “prevent a damaging erosion of trust in the institutions of government”.

MSPs on the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints walked out of a meeting last week after it emerged that parts of their report had been leaked, a member of the panel has revealed.

The committee was set up to investigate the botched handling of harassment complaints against Alex Salmond.

Sections of the report which concluded by division that Nicola Sturgeon misled parliament appeared on Sky News, before being picked up elsewhere.

Speaking to BBC Scotland’s Podlitical podcast, independent MSP and committee member Andy Wightman said members were made aware of the leak as the virtual meeting was going on, causing “one or two” members to walk out.

“As I recall, Alasdair Allan was making a contribution and he got interrupted by the convener to say she had a text from the parliament’s media office to say there were reports out there of our conclusions,” he said.

“There was a stunned silence, one or two people walked out. There’s been at times quite tense, difficult conversations that we’ve had, about process as well… so in a sense it was the culmination of quite a bit of tension. I wouldn’t say it was very pleasant, because I suppose we all think that it must have been one of the committee.”

A further leak of private evidence to the committee of the two women who complained about Mr Salmond was also made to a Sunday newspaper.

Mr Wightman added: “That was a real breach, not just of the MSP code of conduct, but of their trust in us, which I found really devastating.”

A crowdfunding appeal has been launched for a legal challenge against the Northern Ireland protocol amid DUP leader Arlene Foster and other unionists from across the UK proposing judicial review proceedings unless alternative post-Brexit trade arrangements are put in place which secure their consent.

The protocol sees NI follow a number of EU trade rules which has necessitated additional checks on goods arriving from Great Britain. Unionists have criticised the disruption and dubbed the mechanism a border in the Irish Sea.

In a statement on Thursday, campaigners said legal proceedings to end the protocol have been commenced by a “wide coalition of pro-unionists”.

A full hearing at the High Court in Northern Ireland is expected in May.

Mrs Foster tweeted that the crowdfunding appeal is an opportunity for all who oppose the protocol to “play their part”.

UUP leader Steve Aiken said the protocol “fundamentally undermines the integrity of the United Kingdom, the Belfast Agreement and the principle of consent”.

“As one of the parties that negotiated the agreement, we believe we have to take every political, diplomatic and legal avenue open to us to see the invidious, unequal NI protocol annulled, because every day we see the very principles on which the Belfast Agreement was created being trampled on by those who claim to put the peace process at the centre of their arguments,” he said.

“We encourage everyone who believes in the Union and in the Belfast Agreement to support this legal case.”

The foreign secretary has announced that, like the United States, the UK will impose new sanctions on Myanmar’s military regime.

“Today’s sanctions target the military’s financial interests to help drain the sources of finance for their campaigns of repression against civilians,” Dominic Raab said.

The sanctions will be placed against Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd, a military conglomerate owned by parts of the country’s armed forces, a Foreign Office statement said.

It said that the sanctions were a response to the organisation’s involvement in “serious human rights violations against the Rohingya and its association with senior military figures”.

Boris Johnson’s £2.6m new briefing room at 9 Downing Street will be used for the first time for a televised prime ministerial press conference on Monday, No 10 has announced.

The venue, controversially refitted as a high-tech TV studio at taxpayers’ expense, was originally intended for daily media briefings by the prime minister’s press secretary Allegra Stratton.

Asked if the government still intended to go ahead with daily press briefings in the new suite, press secretary Allegra Stratton said: “Yes, we are but we just don’t know yet when. It is all about hitting milestones in the road map.”

Our political editor Andrew Woodcock reports:

Conservative MPs have warned the UK’s secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, that his new powers to direct commissioning of central abortion services in Northern Ireland are “putting the union at risk”.

Former minister Sir John Hayes said the UK government’s granting of new regulations to NI which allow him to intervene and ensure safe abortions are “unjust”.

Sir Edward Leigh said the move is “not democracy”, and fellow Conservative Scott Benton described the new regulations as “a democratic and constitutional assault on Northern Ireland”.

It came as DUP MP Carla Lockhart, who tabled an urgent question, told the Commons the UK government’s introduction of new powers compelling Stormont to implement abortion laws “represents a breach of the Belfast Agreement”.

But Mr Lewis said it is unacceptable that women and girls in NI cannot access abortion services even though the law changed more than a year ago, and added that the UK government’s decision to step in was not taken lightly.

Alliance MP Stephen Farry told the Commons most NI women supported the government stepping in, adding: “I would stress that there is large-scale support in Northern Ireland for these actions.

“It is simply not tenable to have a right on paper but not in practice and for different reproductive rights to exist across the UK.”

The UK’s meat industry faces a permanent loss of up to half of all its exports because of ongoing problems with “mountains” of Brexit red tape, a leading trade body has warned.

In a new report, the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) said “systemic weaknesses” in current trade arrangements meant a potential loss of trade for UK exporters of between 20 and 50 per cent.

My colleague Adam Forrest has the full report:

Jacob Rees-Mogg remains unrepentant following his widely-criticised use of parliamentary privilege to attack Huffington Post deputy political editor Arj Singh.

The Commons leader last week accused the outlet – without evidence – of “distorting” comments by Dominic Raab, captured in leaked footage obtained by the news site, suggesting that the UK should trade with human rights abusers.

Pressed again by Labour to apologise, Mr Rees-Mogg repeated a Foreign Office statement claiming the audio had been “deliberately and selectively clipped to distort” Mr Raab’s comments, telling MPs: “This is why I’d encourage all journalists to ensure that quotes fully reflect the audio available, and I hope [Labour MP Valerie Vaz] would agree with that and do the same.

“And so let them huff and puff but they will not blow this particular house down.”

National Union of Journalists general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said last week: “It beggars belief that government ministers are smearing and impugning journalists in this way, indulging in outrageous behaviour that demeans them and the offices they hold.”

Mr Singh called on Mr Rees-Mogg to “correct the record”.

My colleague Joe Middleton has more on the news that the DUP has called for Northern Ireland to be included in new guidance stating that the Union Jack should be flown daily on government buildings.

Ministers say the move is to serve as a “proud reminder of our history and the ties that bind us”, but elsewhere the Tories’ nationalistic push has been criticised as something of a distraction tactic.

While the new guidance was not extended to Northern Ireland, DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said this was “wrong”, adding that his party would be “pressing the government to address” the matter.

Boris Johnson has been busy pondering the origins of kiwi fruits during a visit to the Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery in Greenford, telling one child: “When I was your age, they didn’t exist.”

Brandishing a paintbrush, while working on a likeness of a banana, the prime minister added: “Were they discovered, or were they invented, kiwis? Did they breed kiwi fruits?”

During his visit, Mr Johnson also addressed the question of so-called vaccine passports, saying: “I do think there is going to be a role for certification”, but that this may be limited to foreign travel.