The row over former Labour leader Wendy Alexander's departure as Labour leader sparked back into life yesterday and spilled into the Glasgow East by-election with the publication of a Holyrood report into her campaign donations.

The SNP claimed the report from Holyrood's standards committee contained details showing officials did tell Ms Alexander she was required to register donations with parliamentary authorities for her leadership campaign last year. But Labour retaliated that this "note of a conversation" was clarified with more information which led officials to give written advice that no registration was necessary.

The SNP focused attention on an appendix to the report that contains a note of a discussion between Ms Alexander and a standards committee clerk on November 8 last year. The clerk said it was explained to Ms Alexander that "any donation could be considered as a gift and therefore it would be required to be registered if it exceeded £520 and met the prejudice test". This, said the SNP, was evidence that contradicts Ms Alexander's version of events.

Labour insists that this conversation took place before Ms Alexander sent a message to the clerk stating that the donations were not made to her personally and she could not withdraw the cash. The clerk then responded in writing: "Given the circumstances that you have outlined to us below, this does not require to be registered under either gifts' or election expenses'."

The long trail to the report's publication started after Wendy Alexander was elected unopposed as leader of the Scottish Labour party last September. She sought campaign donations of just under £1000, the level at which they must be declared to the Electoral Commission. One of her donations, from Jersey based businessman Paul Green, was later found to be inadmissible by the Electoral Commission as it came from a Channel Islands-registered company.

In November, clerks to Holyrood's standards committee told Ms Alexander that she did not need to register the donations on the parliament's register of MSP interests. Dr Jim Dyer, the parliament's Standards Commissioner, later told Labour this was incorrect and in February, when Ms Alexander revealed the details of her supporters, Dr Dyer also sent a report to the procurator- fiscal in Lothian and Borders on the matter.

The Crown Office responded by concluding that prosecuting Ms Alexander would "not be appropriate". Then Dr Dyer went on to get advice from a senior counsel that contradicted that of Holyrood's lawyers and formed the basis of his report to the standards committee.

Last month, just before the Holyrood parliamentary term came to an end, the standards committee voted that Ms Alexander had breached parliamentary rules by failing to register the donations and recommended a one-day suspension from the parliament.

Ms Alexander quit two days later, declaring she was the target of a political witchhunt and leaving Labour without a Scottish leader as the Glasgow East by-election was called.

The standards committee report, with Mr Dyer's reasoning attached, was seized on by the SNP as ammunition for the election campaign in Glasgow. On the campaign trail, Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described the report as "fairly damning and embarrassing" for Labour. "It perhaps sheds light on why Wendy Alexander took the decision to resign just over a week ago. If she had not resigned then I think she would be under enormous pressure to resign today," said Ms Sturgeon.

Labour hit back claiming the report itself was "highly flawed and partisan".

Duncan McNeil, chairman of the Labour group at the Scottish Parliament, said the report was "highly flawed". He added: "It flies in the face of the parliament's own lawyers and is clear the decision reached by the committee was politically motivated. Not just the Labour group, but other MSPs are concerned about the manner in which the process has been politicised by the SNP."