The Tories' messy legal battle with the Covid inquiry could cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds - despite a minister admitting the Government is likely to lose.
The estimate from a legal expert comes after Rishi Sunak launched a judicial review to block requests from the inquiry chairwoman to hand over unredacted WhatsApp messages.
Baroness Heather Hallett's demand relates to messages between ex-PM Boris Johnson and dozens of officials during the pandemic, including Mr Sunak and cabinet ministers.
Elkan Abrahamson, a solicitor and public inquiry expert who now represents the Covid bereaved group, said the legal fight cost to the taxpayer could run "well into six figures''.
The lawyer, who also acted for families involved in the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster, added: "The cost is likely to be several hundred thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money that could have been avoided had people sat down and had a sensible conversation".
As the Covid public inquiry is publicly funded it also means the taxpayer will foot the bill for both sides in the legal dispute - just weeks before the first major hearings begin.
Labour's Deputy Leader Angela Rayner said: "In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, taxpayers will rightly be outraged to be picking up yet another legal bill to pay for Rishi Sunak's latest plot to obstruct the Covid inquiry."
She added: "While the rest of the country is worrying about paying their bills and making their pay cheque stretch to the end of the month, Tory ministers are too busy bickering about whether or not to comply with their own public inquiry to tackle the problems we face".
The PM and ministers are likely to be wary of their personal exchanges during the height of the crisis being released after the embarrassment faced by the ex-Health Secretary Matt Hancock when his WhatsApp messages were leaked.
But earlier this week the former Tory Justice Secretary Sir Robert Buckland also warned it was a "fool's errand" for the Government to take the issue to court.
The Cabinet Office missed a deadline on Thursday to hand over Mr Johnson's messages and notebooks wholesale, without any omissions.
In response, the department said it was bringing a judicial review challenge "with regret".
It has promised to "continue to cooperate fully with the inquiry before, during and after the jurisdictional issue in question is determined by the courts".
They added the Government "fully supports the important and necessary work of the inquiry" and have already submitted more than 55,000 documents.
But on Friday Mr Johnson, who was ousted from No10 last summer, sidestepped the Cabinet Office and sent "all unredacted WhatsApps" directly to the Covid-19 inquiry.
The former PM told the inquiry's chairwoman he would "like to do the same" with messages that are on an old mobile phone he stopped using due to security concerns.
The messages on the locked device refer to discussions from before May 2021 and are likely to relate to conversations about the three coronavirus lockdowns ordered in 2020.
