John Swinney has said he previously tried to leave the Scottish Government twice - but Nicola Sturgeon wouldn't let him.
The Deputy First Minister said he offered to leave Government in 2016 and 2021. He also came “incredibly close to resigning” over the 2020 exams fiasco.
He announced he was resigning earlier this month after nearly 16 years in Government.
Swinney was Scottish education secretary at the onset of the pandemic. Exams were cancelled and a new grading system was put in place.
Teachers then estimated pupils’ marks and they were moderated by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).
But that saw 124,564 pupils having their results lowered from the teacher estimates. Swinney apologised following an outcry and told the SQA to change downgraded results to the estimates.
Swinney told the BBC’s Nicola Sturgeon Podcast: “I came incredibly close to resigning. Very, very close. Because I felt I had made a mistake. What just about persuaded me to do it was the sense that emerged that Covid had turned everything upside down, but we were trying to say ‘business as usual’ on certification.
“I remember reading a comment which said: ‘Surely the kids of Scotland could have been given a break because everything else has been turned upside down’.
“I read that comment and thought, ‘that’s your mistake mate, and you should own it’.”
He later survived a vote of no confidence at Holyrood over the moderation system in an opposition bid to oust him.
Swinney said he offered to stand down from the Cabinet after the Scottish Parliament elections in 2016 and 2021 but said Sturgeon "basically wouldn’t countenance me leaving Government”.
Swinney said he told Sturgeon before Christmas that he intended to leave Government once Kate Forbes returned from maternity leave and he stopped being acting Finance Secretary.
He said Sturgeon did not try to stop him.
The First Minister admitted she may have already been thinking about her own future at that point.
Sturgeon also told the podcast: “If you said to me then that come the middle of February you are going to be announcing your resignation, I would have said to you, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, no I won’t be.’
“But looking back on it, I think subconsciously I was already grappling with that, and maybe in my response to John there was a sense of what deep down inside maybe I knew what was coming for me as well.”
She said that the pair are very close: “The most important person in my adult life, outside my husband and family, is actually John Swinney.”
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