Closing summary
Another revealing day of the Covid inquiry has concluded. Here is a roundup of the day’s biggest moments:
An emotional Sturgeon, who was on the edge of tears at various points of the day, said she felt the number of lives lost during the pandemic was “far too high”. Soon after, she said she was “sorry to each and every bereaved person, and each and every person who suffered in other ways. I did my best, my government did our best and people will judge that.”
Earlier in the day, Sturgeon made a similar statement, saying that “for as long as I live I will carry the impact of [the] decisions” made during the pandemic.
Sturgeon admitted to deleting WhatsApp messages, saying she did so due to “security concerns”. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar later claimed that Sturgeon “lied” to a journalist when she told them that she had preserved WhatsApp messages which the inquiry would want to see.
Sturgeon said one of her main regrets about the pandemic is not locking down earlier in 2020. She said: “Of the many regrets I have, probably chief of those is that we didn’t lock down a week, two weeks, earlier than we did.”
Throughout the day, she denied accusations of politicising the pandemic to bolster support for Scottish independence. Lead counsel Jamie Dawson KC said such a move would be a “considerable betrayal of the Scottish people”, to which Sturgeon agreed it would.
Evidence that the Scottish government was concerned that Spain would block an independent Scotland from joining the EU over travel restrictions was presented to the inquiry. An email – copied to Sturgeon and a number of senior government figures – sent on 19 July from the email address of then deputy first minister John Swinney, but signed off by someone named Scott, said: “It won’t matter how much ministers might justify it on health grounds, the Spanish government will conclude it is entirely political; they won’t forget; there is a real possibility they will never approve EU membership for an independent Scotland as a result.”
Sturgeon said Boris Johnson was the “wrong prime minister” for the Covid crisis. She replied “yes” when asked if Boris Johnson was “the wrong prime minister” for the crisis.
Updated
Today’s hearing has come to an end. Lady Hallett, who chairs the inquiry, said it is unlikely Sturgeon will be called back again and noted that some members of the public gallery were distressed.
In the final question for today, Sturgeon is asked whether the criminal trial for Alex Salmond on allegations of sexual assault, which went ahead in March 2020 and found Salmond not guilty on all counts, had any impact on the timing of when lockdown was imposed in Scotland.
“No,” she replied.
Sturgeon has admitted that there were “flaws and deficiencies” in care home guidance in early in the pandemic.
She said the situation in care homes was “one of the most important” parts of the pandemic response to scrutinise.
In the early months of the pandemic, more than 100 people were discharged from hospital to care homes after having previously tested positive for the virus and before returning a negative test.
She said: “I do not think we got everything right around care homes and I deeply regret that.
“There were undoubtedly flaws and deficiencies in that guidance, but the advice at the time was isolation – keeping people as separate as possible – was the best way to protect people in care homes, and clearly that didn’t have the effect that we wanted it to have.”
Sturgeon: 'I am deeply sorry to every bereaved person. I did my best'
In his final question to Sturgeon, Jamie Dawson KC asked if “the story of Covid in Scotland is the story of the hubris of Nicola Sturgeon”?
A visibly emotional Sturgeon said: “No. I do not believe that to be the case.
“I am in the fortunate position of not having lost anyone to Covid.
“I wish with every fibre of my being that the decisions my government had been able to take could have reduced the number of people in Scotland who did lose someone to Covid.
“I am deeply sorry to each and every bereaved person, and each and every person who suffered in other ways.
“I did my best, my government did our best and people will judge that, but I know that every day I tried my best and those working with me tried their best to steer this country through the Covid pandemic in the best way we could.”
Teary Sturgeon says the number of lives lost during the pandemic was 'far too high'
A teary Sturgeon said she feels the number of lives lost during the pandemic was “far too high”.
Choking back tears, Sturgeon said: “I feel to my core that the number of lives lost to this pandemic were far too high. We were never going to be able to get through a pandemic with no loss of life.
“I think it was far too high.
“I think the other impacts were far too high, and, you know, every death is a tragedy that I regret, and that people in this room and outside across the country are living with the grief and trauma of, so we didn’t do as well as I wish we were able to.”
Updated
Sturgeon: 'For as long as I live I will carry the impact of these decisions'
Sturgeon said that “for as long as I live I will carry the impact of these decisions” made during the pandemic.
An emotional Sturgeon told the Covid-19 Inquiry: “I remember sitting one night in probably February 2020 in Bute House with a set of reasonable worst-case scenario figures in front of me, and a figure for the potential number of deaths that might unfold, which thankfully didn’t unfold at that level, my instinct became something completely different.
“In that moment, my only instinct and the instinct I brought to the management of the pandemic was: how do I lead a government that makes the best possible decisions in horrific circumstances to try to minimise the harm that this virus is going to do?
“People will make their own judgments about me, about my government, about my decisions, but for as long as I live, I will carry the impact of these decisions, I will carry regret at the decisions and judgments I got wrong, but I will always know in my heart and in my soul that my instincts and my motivation was nothing other than trying to do the best in the face of this pandemic.”
Sturgeon has rejected accusations that the pandemic response was run on her “instincts”.
In an exchange over a fanzone in Glasgow for the 2020 European Championships, which took place in 2021, Sturgeon was shown an email between then health secretary Humza Yousaf and national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch where they claimed her “instinct” was to cancel the event.
Responding to the accusation from lead counsel to the inquiry Jamie Dawson KC, the former first minister said that could have been the case had the fanzone been cancelled.
“I had an instinct, I tested it again with the experts, I asked for advice, I considered that advice and, on the basis of that advice, decided the opposite of what my instinct had started out telling me,” she said.
Sturgeon said that Covid will “arguably” never go away after insisting she did not believe the pandemic would “soon be over” after the introduction of the vaccine.
Jamie Dawson KC asked Sturgeon: “Was it your view and that of the Scottish government that the pandemic would soon be over as a result of the arrival of the vaccine?”
Sturgeon said: “No. We’re no longer in a pandemic but people are dying from Covid every week as we speak.
“Covid has not gone away. Arguably, Covid will never go away.”
She said she had been called the “voice of doom” around Covid.
Sturgeon fights back tears again after saying she takes it 'very personally' when motives behind pandemic actions are questioned
Sturgeon fought back tears for second time today as she said she takes it “very personally” when her motives behind actions during the pandemic are questioned.
She said: “I take it very, very personally when people question the very motives because I know the motives were absolutely in good faith and for the best reasons.”
Jamie Dawson KC put it to Sturgeon she wanted to be “the person who had driven Covid out of Scotland”, which she rejected.
The former first minister said: “I hoped that the decisions my government would take would keep Covid at the lowest possible level, so that it took the lives of fewer people, minimised the disruption to people’s livelihoods and the education of children.
“I accept that there will be genuine and serious scrutiny of the content of decisions that were taken, and some of those decisions I wish I had taken, my government, had taken differently, some – I think – were right.
“My motives in this were only ever about trying to do the right thing to minimise the overall harm that the virus was doing.
“The toll it took, in Scotland, as in other parts of the UK, was far too high, so I didn’t do that as successfully as I wish I was able to, but perhaps in some ways the measures we took had some impact.”
Sturgeon was asked whether public health professor Devi Sridhar “frequently” ran what she intended to say in the press and in press interviews by her to ensure their positions were aligned.
Sturgeon denied this, saying: “The volume of Prof Sridhar’s output would suggest that if she ever did that, it was on a very small number of occasions.”
Updated
Sturgeon said the Scottish government had a “maximum suppression” strategy, telling the inquiry the aim was to suppress the virus to the “lowest possible level”.
She said ministers used phraseology like “zero Covid” and elimination colloquially, but she said “emphatically” not eradication, which she said was a “very different concept”.
She added: “At no point was my belief that we would get Covid to a level where it was eliminated and went away.”
Nicola Sturgeon said she should have “been the bigger person” and refrained from sending a tweet addressing a visit by prime minister Boris Johnson in July 2020.
The tweet, sent on 23 July 2020 read: “I welcome the PM to Scotland today.
“One of the key arguments for independence is the ability of Scotland to take our own decisions, rather than having our future decided by politicians we didn’t vote for, taking us down a path we haven’t chosen. His presence highlights that.”
I welcome the PM to Scotland today. One of the key arguments for independence is the ability of Scotland to take our own decisions, rather than having our future decided by politicians we didn’t vote for, taking us down a path we haven’t chosen. His presence highlights that.
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) July 23, 2020
Sturgeon said: “On reflection, should I have risen to the bait and posted that tweet? Probably not.”
Scottish government was concerned Spain would block future EU bid over Covid travel restrictions, inquiry hears
An email from the then deputy first minister John Swinney expressing concern that Spain would block an independent Scotland from joining the EU over travel restrictions has been presented to the inquiry.
An email – copied to the Sturgeon and a number of senior Government figures – sent on 19 July from the email address of Swinney, but signed off by someone named Scott, said he was “extremely concerned” about travel restrictions remaining on the country when there was a “point prevalence rate of 0.015”.
“There is visible action from the Spanish authorities to do whatever it takes to suppress outbreaks (compare and contrast with outbreaks in England),” the email continued.
“It won’t matter how much ministers might justify it on health grounds, the Spanish government will conclude it is entirely political; they won’t forget; there is a real possibility they will never approve EU membership for an independent Scotland as a result.”
Sturgeon has been accused of politicising the pandemic to bolster support for independence during the inquiry. Discussing the email, Sturgeon said: “These are decisions that were taken for public health reasons that were difficult decisions.”
NEW: Email emerges showing concerns from the Scottish Govt that Spain could block a future application for EU membership for an independent scotland over Spanish travel corridors during covid.@SkyNews pic.twitter.com/YJPk4ida5z
— Connor Gillies (@ConnorGillies) January 31, 2024
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PA has some reaction from some Scottish families who lost loved ones to Covid outside the inqiry hearing centre in Paddington.
During lunch, members of the Scottish Covid Bereaved and their lawyer, Aamer Anwar, spoke to journalists outside the building where the inquiry is being held.
He said Sturgeon had delivered a “polished performance” at the inquiry but his clients were “deeply unsatisfied” with the explanations around the deletion of WhatsApps.
Anwar said: “[Sturgeon’s] industrial deletion of WhatsApps, along with those of her inner circle, still begs the question of why.
“Why were they deleted when she knew that there was a public inquiry on its way?”
He said the group is considering calling for a criminal investigation into the actions of the former first minister and others, but they would consider their next steps after Thursday’s evidence session concluded.
Margaret Waterton, who lost her mother and husband to coronavirus, said Sturgeon was a “consummate politician” but the context of the decision-making at the heart of government remained unclear.
Waterton said: “Ms Sturgeon said she had not had a day off for months during the pandemic.
“I would ask Ms Sturgeon to consider walking in our shoes, because we have not had a day off since the deaths of our loved ones.”
Peter McMahon, who lost his wife, Debbie, said both the UK and Scottish governments should “hang their heads in shame”.
Pamela Thomas lost her brother, James Cameron, during the pandemic.
She said too much time was being taken up on the issue of WhatsApp messages and said: “I don’t think they’re capable of actually telling the truth or being transparent.”
She added: “Crocodile tears aren’t washing with me.
“If there is any tools available to my solicitors or the inquiry with regards to any criminal activity that took place, I would like them to use them all.”
Updated
Sturgeon has denied politicising the pandemic to push for Scottish independence.
Sturgeon was asked whether she was using the pandemic to push for Scottish independence. Lead counsel Jamie Dawson KC asked if such a move would be a “considerable betrayal of the Scottish people”.
“If I had at any point decided to politicise a global pandemic that was robbing people of their lives and livelihoods and educational opportunities, and had decided in the face of that to prioritise campaigning for independence, then, yes, it absolutely would have been as you described,” Sturgeon said.
“Which is precisely why I didn’t do it – I wouldn’t have done it.”
Updated
Sturgeon said none of the decisions she took were “influenced in any way” by political considerations or by trying to gain advantage in the goal of independence.
She said she had not thought “less” about politics and independence than she did during the Covid-19 pandemic.
She said: “I was motivated solely by trying to do the best we could to keep people as safe as possible.”
Sturgeon says she regrets not locking down earlier in 2020
Sturgeon said one of her main regrets about the pandemic is not locking down earlier in 2020.
She said: “Of the many regrets I have, probably chief of those is that we didn’t lock down a week, two weeks, earlier than we did.”
Sturgeon went on to deny the decisions she took during the pandemic were done for political reasons, adding she had not “thought less” about politics and Scottish independence in her life than she did during the pandemic.
“I was motivated solely by trying to do the best we could to keep people as safe as possible,” she added.
“We did that to some extent, but not to, and perhaps we never could have done it to the extent I would have wished we could have done.
“I carry the regret for the loss of life, the loss of opportunity, the loss of education of our young people, I carry that with me every single day.”
Sturgeon said her introduction of coronavirus measures in Scotland before they were announced and introduced in England by the UK government was not designed to “annoy” Westminster.
“At no point in my thinking was I trying to steal a march on anybody else or trying to get ahead of it,” she said.
“I was simply trying to do my job to the best of my ability.”
Sturgeon added that if she were to seek to not “irritate” former prime minister Boris Johnson, she would have had to agree to do “whatever Boris Johnson wanted me to do”.
Sturgeon said that the UK government may have communicated coronavirus measures “too slowly” rather than the Scottish government doing so too quickly.
The former first minister was accused throughout the pandemic of attempting to undermine the UK government by announcing decisions made on a four-nations basis before Boris Johnson was able to.
Sturgeon announced a ban on mass gatherings at 3.20pm on 12 March 2020 after a Cobra meeting, the inquiry heard.
She said her responsibility was “to the Scottish people, not Boris Johnson”.
“I would put it that I communicated these things quickly, perhaps the UK Government were communicating them too slowly.”
She added: “Doing so with urgency at that point was required.”
Updated
Sturgeon has denied a claim by Michael Gove that she broke confidentiality and “jumped the gun” when she announced a ban on mass gatherings in Scotland before other parts of the UK agreed to the move during the pandemic.
The then first minister announced on 12 March 2020 that the Scottish government would ban any gatherings of 500 people or more the following week, before that decision had been agreed at a Cobra meeting called later that day to discuss the crisis.
Michael Gove, the then UK cabinet minister, has said this caused “discomfort” and “disquiet” in Whitehall, the inquiry has previously heard.
But responding today, Sturgeon said she would counter his allegations.
“I think by this point none of us were jumping the gun and we were arguably going more slowly than we should have. The public was ahead of the government in terms of the action we should have taken.”
She added that her view on mass gatherings was that she felt it was important to take the action because there was still a of transmission, she was concerned about the pressure on emergency services having to police large events and also because she thought a “disjoint” was emerging in the messaging from government that the virus was serious.
Sturgeon insists that work was undertaken to protect Scotland’s vulnerable population, which was disproportionately larger than in many other parts of the UK.
She replies “no” when Jamie Dawson KC, for the inquiry, puts it to her that in the early stages of the pandemic that the Scottish government was “asleep at the wheel”.
This came after Sturgeon insisted notes that had been taken by civil servant Derek Grieve which suggested there was a lack of preparedness and urgency within the Scottish government would have been taken seriously at the time.
Grieve made the notes in March 2020 which showed Scottish government officials discussing “internal Scottish government communications”.
Sturgeon said: “I didn’t know about these views at the time, Derek Grieve is a civil servant that I have worked with in various capacities over my time in government. Again, you know, he is a civil servant of the utmost professionalism, so I would have taken seriously what he said.”
But, Sturgeon said, it had not been her experience at the time that there was a lack of preparedness.
Updated
Sturgeon 'lied' about keeping WhatsApp messages – Anas Sarwar
Anas Sarwar, leader of the Labour party in Scotland, has claimed that Nicola Sturgeon “lied” to a journalist when she told them that she had preserved WhatsApp messages which the inquiry would want to see.
Sarwar made the comments on a visit to Westminster, where he met journalists and have response to Sturgeon’s evidence thus far at the inquiry. There was, he said, “a huge sense of betrayal amongst the Scottish public”.
He added:
Nicola Sturgeon was someone that people, regardless of where they set on the political spectrum, they looked at during the Covid pandemic, particularly in contrast to Boris Johnson and thought: this was someone that was standing up and telling them the truth, being straight up with them, and trying to navigate the best way through the pandemic.
I think the anger is worsened because with Boris Johnson, in her own words, he was a clown, he was an idiot, he didn’t know what he was doing. No one makes that accusation about Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP.
And despite the fact that they knew what they were doing, to delete WhatsApp messages in such a wholesale way, to outright lie to a journalist and therefore to the public, I think is completely utterly unforgivable.
Updated
Sturgeon is being asked about her non-attendance at the “Operation Nimbus” planning exercise in early 2020, which brought together senior figures from the UK government and other administrations.
With hindsight, her instinctive reaction might be that she should have been there, though she says that “not everybody can be at everything” in times such as the ones they were living in.
The meeting was aimed at drawing up a ‘battleplan’, the inquiry has previously heard, and set out a scenario in which the virus had claimed 840,000 lives in the UK.
Updated
Sturgeon is being asked about the resignation of Dr Catherine Calderwood, who quit her role as chief medical officer to the Scottish government in April 2020 after facing intense criticism for breaking her own rules to twice visit her second home during the coronavirus outbreak.
This happened at a pivotal moment when the government and its experts were settling into a rhythm, Sturgeon says. Calderwood was a pivotal part of that and the then First Minister was “mindful” of the disruption that could be caused from losing her.]
She eventually realised, as more reports emerged, that Calderwood would be unable to stay. Calderwood had already reached that decision and it was to her credit that she had been clear with the First Minister that public messaging had to take precedence, Sturgeon says.
This stands in contrast to “some other episodes,” she says, in a potential reference, some might suspect, to the behaviour of those in government in London.
Updated
The inquiry has returned and Sturgeon has said she had confidence in the advice she received from Scotland’s chief medical officers during the pandemic, despite none of the three coming from a respiratory disease or related background.
Sturgeon also moves again to speak up in defence of Dr Catherine Calderwood in response to a suggestion from counsel for the inquiry that Calderwood “did not seem to have much of a plan” when it came to preparing to implement a strategy for testing.
Sturgeon rejects the suggestion that there was any “culture of secrecy” on the part of the Scottish government when it came to things like whether Scottish ministers covered up the first recorded Covid outbreak in Scotland, from a Nike conference in Edinburgh in February 2020.
In the case of Nike, the decision taken was informed by considerations of patient confidentiality, but she accepted that others may have taken a different view.
“On Nike, I saw the potential – I don’t think this risk materialised – I saw the potential for the Nike conference to emerge later through a media disclosure to undermine confidence. In hindsight I would have gone the other way,” she added.
The inquiry is now breaking and will return at 1.45pm.
Updated
Sturgeon was asked about another aspect of planning – the need for public messaging – and she was asked if there had been a recommendation that keeping the public informed at an earlier stage was as important as the later process of daily briefings.
She says she recalls in advance of the briefings more regularly being asked about it in interviews, so the public messaging was something that her government was aware of.
Jamie Dawson KC (for the inquiry) says there was evidence of some things not being communicated to the public, such as the identity of the first person to die from Covid in Scotland and concerns about a rugby fixture. None of them were communicated at the time with any detail. Was this on the advice of Dr Catherine Calderwood, who was the chief medical officer in Scotland for a period before she later resigned?
Sturgeon says there were difference considerations in relation to those different examples.
She had discussed them with Dr Calderwood, though looking back now she might take a different decision. That said, she did not believe her advice was unreasonable.
A different physician might have had a different “risk appetite” and given different advice, while a “different politician” might have taken a different decision, she added.
She accepted the decisions made in that regard had the potential to undermine public messaging.
Updated
Sturgeon is asked about previous evidence that the health system had lacked the kit and resources when it came to getting testing in place.
It didn’t reflect a lack of urgency in terms of planning, she insists, and there was an intense supply chain pressure.
It took time for larger testing labs to be got up and running, although it would always have been the case that things didn’t move as quickly as she would have liked.
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Sturgeon: 'At times I felt overwhelmed with what we were dealing with'
Sturgeon wipes away a tear, adding that in the early days of the pandemic her experience and view was that everyone was trying their best.
She insists that she did not see an opportunity of any sort in Covid, in answer to a question about whether she saw the pandemic as a political opportunity.
“You have seen snippets of the human side of being a leader in those circumstances. At times I felt overwhelmed with what we were dealing with and perhaps more than anything I felt an overwhelming responsibility to do the best that I could.”
“The idea that in those horrendous days, weeks I was thinking of a political opportunity … I find … well, it just wasn’t true,” she adds, appearing to be trying to hold off tears again.
Updated
Sturgeon says Johnson was 'wrong prime minister' for Covid crisis
Sturgeon replies “yes” when asked if Boris Johnson was “the wrong prime minister” for the Covid-19 crisis.
Did she consider herself to be the right first minister for the job?
No, that is not how she would see things, says Sturgeon, as her voice cracks when she goes on to say that there is a large part of her which would have wished that she was not in that role.
Updated
Sturgeon was asked about a WhatsApp exchange in which Jason Leitch, a clinical director who advised on the response to the pandemic by the Scottish government, referred to the then first minister’s “‘keep it small’ shenanigans”.
Nicola Sturgeon was asked about comments on Whatsapp by an advisor to her govt that she favoured 'keep it small shenanigans" when it came ot meetings
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) January 31, 2024
"You have to know Jason Leitch as well as I do to appreciate his sometimes turn of phrase," she responds pic.twitter.com/vSVqpcQciZ
Leitch was “crucial in a very positive way to our handling of the pandemic”, says Sturgeon.
She goes on to say that she suspects it was a reference to things that were sometimes said about her in government, which is that she “didn’t like a cast of unnecessary thousands” in meetings.
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From the start of her evidence this morning, Nicola Sturgeon has appeared on edge, defensive, occasionally adopting that head girl-ish “I know best” tone that will be familiar to those who watched her briefings during the pandemic.
But there was a flare of genuine emotion at the end of the first morning session, when Dawson asked her about a story which appeared in the Express this morning which suggested that she and the former health secretary Jeane Freeman had purchased “burner phones” at the start of the pandemic.
Whilst there are questions to ask about use of phones by ministers – earlier Sturgeon admitted she had only used a personal phone during her time as first minister – the insinuation of this particular report were dubious at best, and it was a surprise that Dawson raised it.
Sturgeon immediately explained that the purchases were made by her constituency staff as office landlines were diverted to mobiles once lockdown was imposed – many other MSPs would have done likewise she said.
But the trembling and twitching of her lips and the wetting of her eyes suggested she was struggling to keep her emotions in check. Was she frustrated that Dawson was raising such a trivial bit of mischief-making amidst otherwise serious questioning? Or simply responding to highly pressurised questioning?
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The inquiry is being shown notes taken by Liz Lloyd, Sturgeon’s former chief of staff, from a meeting in 2020 about steps taken to mitigate the financial impact of a so-called ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown.
In a previous hearing, Lloyd had been asked about her suggestion of “political tactics calling for things we can’t do to force the UK”.
Sturgeon says this was a period of 2020 which culminated in the second lockdown in England and enhanced measure in Scotland. It was the point when there was a “disjoint” between the ability of the Scottish government to take public health decisions and inability to borrow money to compensate businesses was coming to the fore.
“This was a frustration that was expressed regularly by us,” she says, adding that the same frustration was felt by officials in Northern Ireland and Wales.
“This was, to be blunt, the Scottish government seeking to ensure, if we had to apply tougher restrictions, Scottish workers would get their wages paid and Scottish businesses would be able to cover their costs in the same way as those in England would.”
Sturgeon says she rejects any suggestion that Kate Forbes, as finance secretary, was excluded from those meetings
She did not operate in on any issue in a way that sought to exclude people from decision making, she insists.
“I tried to lead from the front. I tried to shoulder my fair share sometimes more than my fair share of the decision making given the severity,”
But she goes on to say: “I am sitting here thinking I don’t know why she wasn’t there that day, maybe she should have been in it and it was not a deliberate attempt to exclude her in any way.”
Updated
Sturgeon has been asked by comments from Kate Forbes who said she “wasn’t invited” to any of the high-level Scottish government pandemic response meetings in 2020 despite being finance secretary at the time. Forbes also told the inquiry she was not even aware of the so-called “gold command” meetings which Sturgeon had convened.
Sturgeon says there would have been nothing to stop her from attending those meetings if she had wanted to and her office was copied in to the notice of the meetings and papers.
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Sturgeon 'strongly refutes' allegation she did not like light to be shone on how Scottish government made decisions
Jamie Dawson KC, for the inquiry, puts it to her that there has been a theme developing that the Scottish government which she led “did not like light to be shone” on the manner in which decisions were taken during the pandemic.
“I would very strongly refute that,” Sturgeon replies, going on to tell Dawson that she had looked at all the cabinet papers from the whole period, which ran to thousands of pages.
That paperwork does not just simply recall the decisions that were reached, and the options, but also gives a “comprehensive record”, which included the “thought processes and rationales”.
Updated
Sturgeon is now being asked about something the UK Covid inquiry is struggling to understand in relation to how she took key decisions during the pandemic because her “gold command” meetings were not minuted.
Jamie Dawson KC, the inquiry’s Scottish counsel, has said previously it appeared that the Scottish government failed to record discussions during any of Sturgeon’s crucial “gold” meetings with a small handful of her advisers and senior ministers during 2020 and 2021.
Asked about it today, Sturgeon essentially denies gold meeting were examples of her dictating policy without being minuted. Ultimately, cabinet made the decisions and set the policy, she insists.
There’s more here on the issue, as reported by my colleague Severin Carrell yesterday.
Updated
Sturgeon is shown a WhatsApp exchange in which Humza Yousaf, then health minister, was discussing the possibility of further lockdown related measures, but where there were questions about funding for business.
The inquiry has heard that Yousaf told cabinet that he had found money from his budget. In the WhatsApp messages, Yousaf said that “he had taken a bullet” at the meeting and that the then first minister “was not remotely happy its at this last stage.”
Dawson puts it to her that there was a culture where Sturgeon didn’t want to countenance things which she had not had advance sight of
“There was no such culture in the government I led,” she says. Cabinet discussions were robust and earnest and she expected ministers to be able to come and argue for the decisions they wanted to take.
Updated
The inquiry is back now again and has moved on to the decision-making process.
Before then, however, it’s worth reporting on this exchange we didn’t get to earlier in which Sturgeon said she “perhaps shouldn’t have” given an SNP address to Prof Devi Sridhar, who advised the Scottish government during the coronavirus outbreak
The inquiry saw messages between the pair where the then first minister gave Sridhar an SNP email address as well as a Scottish government email address.
She said: “On reflection perhaps I shouldn’t have done that.
“But if I had been in any way trying to direct her to a private email address, I doubt if I would have put my government email address in there as well.”
Updated
Sturgeon is being asked about her use of a personal phone – as other members of her government did – and whether she felt it was appropriate.
It was never suggested to me at any time during my period as first minister that it was not appropriate, she replies. She used a personal phone because she didn’t want to have multiple devices.
Jamie Dawson KC, for the inquiry, asks her about a report yesterday in the Scottish Daily Express that Sturgeon and Jeane Freeman, the Scottish government’s health secretary at the time, purchased cheap mobile phones and prepaid top-up cards during the early months of the Covid pandemic.
Sturgeon says that they were the phones her constituency office landline were diverted to in the homes of her constituency workers.
She had never “to the best of my knowledge seen heard or used any of the phones.”
The inquiry is now taking a break until 11.30 before it moves on to other areas of questioning by Dawson.
Updated
Sturgeon has been shown exchanges from another WhatsApp group – which she was not a part of – in which a civil servant appeared to be encouraging others to delete records that could be recoverable under the freedom of information act
She says she “can’t answer” for Ken Thomson, the civil servant who made the remark, but she insists that her experience of him was that he was “assiduous” and took his duties and responsibilities seriously
“I can only speak about my experience of him and I can give an answer based on my interpretation of it, which was that it was meant to be a light-hearted discussion,” she added.
Sturgeon wasn't in this Whatsapp group but she's being asked about a Scottish government civil servant who appeared to have been encouraging others to delete messages that could be recovered under FOI
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) January 31, 2024
Can't answer for him but she suggests it was "light hearted" pic.twitter.com/iAONXTNZLi
Updated
Sturgeon is being pressed at length on the rationale for not storing WhatsApp messages. The position she keeps on returning to is that any decisions taken would have been discussed at cabinet level and recorded there.
At the Covid inquiry, Nicola Sturgeon is being asked about her deletion of whatsapps
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) January 31, 2024
Would an exchange like this not have been one that would have informed a public understanding later?
There was nothing in this exchange that would not have been recored in public record she says pic.twitter.com/ULOVEA0SBs
In many cases, she insists, she would have been standing at a podium later in the day being questioned about the issues at hand.
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Sturgeon admits deleting WhatsApp messages
Sturgeon once again says she wants to be “very clear” that it was not her practice to have lengthy or detailed discussions through “these means” – a reference to WhatsApp.
“It’s not my style,” she insists.
What follows is an exchange between Sturgeon and Dawson over the manner in which messages were not retained on her phone. Dawson asks if she is making a distinction between deletion and not retaining messages, to which she tells him she was “very thorough” to keep to the advice she had been given about the retention of records.
“But did you delete them?” asks Dawson
“Yes,” comes the answer.
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There was a frenetic pace in government at the time and the situation was changing several times a day, says Sturgeon. Three, four years on, it’s hard to appreciate that, she insists.
Dawson says however the fact that you are working at pace does not alter the need to ensure that decisions taken are stored on the corporate record.
As the conversation moves on, Sturgeon says that decisions taken were ones by their very nature were ones that could not be kept secret because they were ones the public was being asked to take.
I didn’t get to it earlier, but it’s worth reporting that Sturgeon says she was being asked during the pandemic to take decisions which she and other politicians had never experienced before. Her voice seemed to break a little bit as she added that she “thinks about them every day.”
Dawson is pressing Sturgeon a bit further on how seriously she took the retention of records.
“I knew I had operated in line with a policy I had operated in line with to ensure that conversations with others in government should not be kept in a phone that could be lost or destroyed,” she replies.
Surgeon is also asked about an exchange she had with a Channel 4 journalist who had asked her if she would ensure that all emails and WhatsApps would be retained. You can view it here
‘Can you guarantee to the bereaved families that you will disclose emails, WhatsApps, private emails if you’ve been using them. Whatever. That nothing will be off limits in this inquiry?’
— Ciaran Jenkins (@C4Ciaran) October 29, 2023
My question to @NicolaSturgeon August 2021
pic.twitter.com/OJDCBTESCe
“I also knew that anything of any relevance or substance would be properly recorded in the Scottish government system,” she replies.
She says that she wants to underline that in her case “that communication” [WhatsApp] was extremely limited and would not apply to matters of substantive decision making.
But that wasn’t the question that Channel 4 had asked her, Dawson says.
Sturgeon apologises if her answer to the journalist was not “as clear” and wants to give the inquiry a “personal assurance” that the inquiry has “everything and everything” germane to her decision making during the crisis.
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Sturgeon says she can’t recall receiving an email which a Scottish government civil servant had sent out with a “do not destroy notification for members of the administration to remind them to retain records.
“I do not. As far as I am aware I did not receive that,” Sturgeon tells Dawson, who goes on to suggest she would recall if such a communication was sent out.
“I don’t think I would have required to see that to know that matters that were relevant, matters of substance, salient matters that would be relevant to the inquiry … should be retained.”
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Use of WhatsApp 'too common' in Scottish government, Sturgeon says, but was not used for Covid decisions
WhatsApp had become – maybe – too common a means of communication in government, says Sturgeon.
But she insists that government decisions were not being taken on the platform.
One of the reasons why she doesn’t believe it should be used for government decision making is that when politicians make public statements they should think very carefully about the scope for what they say being misinterpreted.
“When you send things on WhatsApp you sometimes don’t think – including me – very carefully about how they can be interpreted,” she adds.
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Speaking about previous messages which the inquiry has seen, Sturgeon says she is not sure if she has seen any messages which contained material that the Scottish public would not otherwise have seen.
“It might be for the Scottish public to judge,” interjects Jamie Dawson KC, for the inquiry.
“Of course,” replies Sturgeon, who insists that it was an “open conversation” with the public throughout the pandemic.
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The WhatsApp issue has come up with haste and Sturgeon says that she was never a member of any Whatsapp groups and interacted through “informal messaging systems” with no more than a dozen people.
Principally, she would have communicated with her former chief of staff Liz Lloyd and Humza Yousaf, her successor as Scotland’s First Minister and SNP leader but who was a member of her government at the time.
Communication of that nature was not used by me for anything other than routine exchanges and would have been “littered” with things like “there’s a note coming from me to you.”
Sturgeon says she operated on the basis that she would ensure that anything in communications of an important nature was otherwise recorded on the Scottish government system.
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Is it still your position today that you and the Scottish government were open “open, transparent and accountable” not just in your actions but in your words?, asks Jamie Dawson KC
“Yes, that is still my position. Openess and transparency with the Scottish public was very important to me from the outset,” says Sturgeon.
There will have been misjudgements and there will have been – on reflection – instances on which we could have done better, she adds.
“You are Nicola Sturgeon,” the former SNP leader is asked after she takes her seat.
“I am..”
And with that the questioning is underway. Sturgeon confirms she has provided some additional material to the inquiry last week, in addition to her earlier statements.
Question immediately focuses on communications during the pandemic.
Nicola Sturgeon gives evidence at UK Covid inquiry
Nicola Sturgeon, the former Scottish First Minister, is appearing before the Covid Inquiry in Edinburgh in what is the biggest day of the probe’s focus on that part of the UK.
For long the pre-eminent figure in Scottish politics, Sturgeon has experienced a dramatic fall from grace in the time since she was at the helm of her government’s response to the pandemic.
But while she was lauded by many at the time, she faces a range of awkward questions during an examination that is likely to see her draw on all of her experience as a lawyer and political representative.
Those questions are likely to cover the following areas, and more:
• The inquiry has previously heard that the former SNP leaded did not retain any of her WhatsApp messages. Why?
• Sturgeon had pledged to hand over all of her communications from the pandemic. In what circumstances did they disappear or were deleted?
• Guidance on the use of WhatsApp was issued by the Scottish government in 2021. Did she follow those rules and, if not, why not?
• Sturgon has been accused of seeking to use the pandemic as a way of leveraging support for Scottish independence. Did she seek to deliberately engage in a politically self-serving row with the UK government over issues such as the Furlough Scheme?
This covering her answers to those questions – and anything else – on this liveblog, along with in-person reporting at the Inquiry from my colleagues Severin Carrell and Libby Brooks.
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