Scottish Government to hand over 14,000-plus messages to UK Covid Inquiry

Deputy First Minister Shona Robison said messages, mostly sent on WhatsApp, would be shared by November 6.

Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf will hand over unredacted WhatsApp messages to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, MSPs were told (Yui Mok/PA)

The Scottish Government is to share more than 14,000 messages with the UK Covid-19 Inquiry – with First Minister Humza Yousaf to hand over unredacted WhatsApp messages, MSPs have been told.

In a statement at Holyrood, Scottish Deputy First Minister Shona Robison confirmed the Scottish Government had received a legal notice permitting it to hand over the messages on Monday.

Messages, including those from Scottish Government ministers and former ministers, are included in that, Ms Robison said.

The First Minister, when submitting a statement to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry in the coming days, will “hand over WhatsApp messages unredacted to the inquiry”, she added.

The Deputy First Minister said a legal order, known as a Section 21 notice, had been required before the messages could be handed over because “a number of them were of a particularly personal nature, including photos of individuals’ children and personal medical details”.

With the order now received, Ms Robison told MSPs at Holyrood that work was “well under way” to ensure the messages would be handed over by the deadline set by the inquiry.

The Deputy First Minister added: “This will mean that all requested messages held will be shared, in full and unredacted, by November 6.”

She said the Scottish Government would “share over 14,000 mainly WhatsApp messages from various groups and individuals over the period of the pandemic”.

The Deputy First Minister added: “In instances where it appears as though messages may not be available, including through deletion in line with civil service policies on data management and retention, advice has been sought as to whether device owners or a third party are able to recover material.”

Ms Robison was giving a statement to MSPs at Holyrood after counsel to the inquiry Jamie Dawson KC revealed last week that “no messages” from within the Scottish Government had been provided.

There then followed press reports that former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, as well as national clinical director Professor Jason Leitch and chief medical officer Dr Sir Gregor Smith, had deleted their messages.

A spokeswoman for the former first minister said Ms Sturgeon would fully co-operate with the inquiries and she had just submitted her third written statement, which ran to about 200 pages.

Margaret Waterton, of the Scottish Covid Bereaved Group, claimed it was “shameful” the Scottish Government had not yet provided the information.

Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland on Tuesday, Ms Waterton, who lost her mother and husband to the illness, said: “The situation this week with Scottish Government not having brought forward the information that it was requested to provide to the inquiry some considerable time ago, I think, frankly, is shameful.”

A public inquiry was talked about in May 2020. Why did ministers not retain evidence from then? It is inconceivable that a former first minister would not understand the importance of that evidence

Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour

Opposition politicians at Holyrood pressed Ms Robison on the deleted messages, with Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross claiming “the stench of secrecy from this Government is overpowering”.

He asked if the 14,000 messages to be handed over would include “all messages” from Ms Sturgeon and Mr Leitch.

Adding that the Scottish Government had been told in June 2021 not to destroy any communications relating to the pandemic, Mr Ross added that anyone who had deleted messages after this date “would have broken the law”.

Ms Robison, however, said she could not say who the messages to be handed over to the inquiry were from, or what their content is, explaining that was “the confidential nature of what the inquiry has asked for”.

She added it was “in the gift of the inquiry itself” if any of them would be made public.

Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie claimed messages had been “destroyed on an industrial scale”.

She said: “A public inquiry was talked about in May 2020. Why did ministers not retain evidence from then?

“It is inconceivable that a former first minister would not understand the importance of that evidence.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton, meanwhile, questioned if “life and death judgments” during the pandemic had ever “hinged around Nicola Sturgeon’s desire just to be different” from the then UK prime minister Boris Johnson.

On this, he said “we may never know” because “messages deleted at the very top of the Scottish Government erased the process by which ministers weighed the politics and science behind the decisions required of them”.