SCOTTISH Green minister Lorna Slater has survived a vote of no confidence tabled by the Conservatives at Holyrood.
Slater, the co-leader of the Scottish Greens, was backed by 68 MSPs to continue in the role, while 55 voted for her to be ousted.
Combined, the SNP and Greens have 71 MSPs. The Unionist parties have 57.
Tory MSP Liam Kerr had attempted to see Slater removed from her role as Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity, as part of which she has overseen the beleaguered Deposit Return Scheme (DRS).
Labour and the LibDems supported the Conservative motion.
SNP MSP Fergus Ewing, who has been vocal in his attacks on the Scottish Greens and the Bute House Agreement which brought them into government, said that he had voted to show no confidence in Slater.
Ewing said he had voted to see a "new minister appointed to take over" the "troubled" DRS. The move raises questions for the SNP, who may look to remove the whip from the former cabinet secretary.
Kerr claimed it was a "telling reflection of the minister’s gross ineptitude that MSPs from every party but her own backed it".
He added: "Many SNP backbenchers have been highly critical of Lorna Slater in public but sadly, they bottled out of taking the tough but necessary decision to remove her.”
The Scottish Greens hit out at the Labour MSPs who had backed the Tory motion.
Ross Greer, the party's constitution spokesperson, said: “For Labour to line up with the most dishonest Tory Party in living memory is beyond shameful, it is pitiful.
“They are behaving less like the people’s party and more like a terrible backup act to the Conservatives, an image familiar to those who remember their joined-at-the-hip campaigning in 2014.
“Every Labour MSP who backed this grubby vote should be ashamed and embarrassed."
The vote followed Slater telling parliament that Circularity Scotland, the non-profit company set up to run the DRS, had called in administrators.
There had been speculation about its future following the decision to delay the scheme until at least October 2025, which came about after the UK Government intervened to prevent it including glass.
Slater told MSPs: “We have learned today that the process is under way to appoint administrators to CSL (Circularity Scotland Ltd), leaving their staff in an extremely difficult position.
“This is an unforgivable consequence of the UK Government’s 11th-hour intervention, which undermined our deposit return scheme, made progress impossible and is now resulting in these jobs being lost.”
