THE First Minister has rejected Douglas Ross’s claim that the Scottish Government is being “secretive” and is refusing to hand over Whatsapp messages to the Covid-19 inquiry.
Jamie Dawson KC, counsel to the Covid-19 Inquiry, said while the Scottish Government had been asked to provide “all communications related to key decisions made during the pandemic”, including informal messages on WhatsApp, “no messages” had been handed over on Thursday morning.
The Scottish Tory leader raised the issue with Yousaf at First Minister’s Questions, asking: “Why has Humza Yousaf not handed over key messages to the inquiry?
“Grieving families deserve answers and full transparency from this Government.
“The counsel to the inquiry has said they have not received what they asked from the Scottish Government.”
Yousaf said the Scottish Government does “take seriously the concerns that have been raised by counsel”.
He added: “I can only say to the families listening we will take on board those concerns, we will internally investigate fully, because my understanding, certainly as I stand here today, is that relevant information has been passed over.
“But if there is any concerns raised they will be fully investigated and I will ask the Solicitor General to investigate them, and of course I will update this Parliament on any of those investigations.”
Ross said “refusing” to hand over the information requested would be an “insult to grieving families” and a “shocking display of secrecy” by the Scottish Government that would “potentially break the law”.
Yousaf insisted during the exchange: “Douglas Ross is saying nothing has been handed over, that is incorrect.
“My own statement to the Covid inquiry is over 100 pages long, so to suggest that there has not been any information passed over, that is simply incorrect.”
The FM said that Scottish ministers did not routinely make decisions via the messaging service during the height of the pandemic and insisted relevant material had been handed over.
“There are some messages that we are going to continue to provide but they have to go through the appropriate processes," he said.
"We will continue to hand over those messages.”
Speaking after the exchange, the First Minister's spokesperson did not clarify what processes were involved but added that the Scottish Government would be issuing a response to the statement made by Dawson KC on Thursday afternoon.
Earlier, Ross (below) had accused the FM of misleading the Scottish Parliament, which Yousaf described as a "complete mischaracterisation".
He said: "I did not inadvertently mislead the chamber, I didn’t say that there’s never been discussions over WhatsApp, what I said is we don’t routinely make decisions over WhatsApp, which is of course very different to what the UK Government has done."
Following FMQs, Yousaf was asked by journalists if he or his ministers used the disappearing message function on WhatsApp but did not say if they or officials did so.
“We don’t routinely conduct parliamentary business through WhatsApp," he said outside the chamber.
Dawson KC, counsel to the inquiry, said on Thursday that messages sent by informal methods, such as WhatsApp or other messaging services including texts, signal messages and over Microsoft Teams, "can provide important information about and context to the key decisions and issues" set to be examined by the probe.
He told the inquiry: "I should be clear, my Lady, that subject to one exception to which I will revert, at present the Scottish Government has provided the Inquiry with no WhatsApp or other informal messaging material."
Dawson KC added: "A clear theme of the overall response received from and via the Scottish Government is that although such messaging systems were used in the pandemic response, including by some key decision-makers and others, generally very few messages appear to have been retained.
"This is surprising, in particular in light of the apparent availability of such messages in high volumes within the UK Government."
Representing Scottish Covid Bereaved at the inquiry, Claire Mitchell KC (below, right) echoed Ross’s claim that ministers erasing WhatsApp messages “would be a criminal offence”.
“As I touched on before, we are extremely disappointed by the apparent failure by politicians and civil servants to retain messages and the seemingly widespread use of the auto-delete function," she said.
“This does not inspire confidence in the Scottish Government’s approach to its full co-operation with this inquiry."
Representing the Scottish Government, Geoffrey Mitchell KC said the requested messages will be given to the inquiry but maintained that Scottish ministers using platforms such as WhatsApp is uncommon.
He said: “If statements lacked details then we will ensure that they are as full as they can be.
“We will provide the messages that have been asked for.”
