Rishi Sunak has failed to hand over his WhatsApp messages from his time as chancellor to the Covid inquiry despite the high court ruling that ministers should disclose their communications for scrutiny.
In his witness statement to the public inquiry, seen by the Guardian, the prime minister claimed that he did “not have access” to the messages during the period running the Treasury because he had changed his phone several times and failed to back them up.
The inquiry, which begins hearing evidence on Tuesday for its second stage examining the government’s handling of the pandemic, had requested key communications sent during the pandemic, from the end of January 2020 to the end of February 2022.
Sunak became chancellor in February 2020 and his messages could include details of crucial pandemic decisions made by the Treasury including ‘eat out to help out’, bounce-back loans and the furlough scheme.
Boris Johnson faced fierce criticism when he said that he would hand over his pandemic WhatsApp messages only once government officials assessed the safety of the device he was forced to discard in April 2021 for security reasons. In July, his spokesperson said that the messages had been retrieved and given to the inquiry.
The Guardian understands, however, that Johnson has told the inquiry that he has been unable to access messages between 31 January and 7 June 2020, significant dates in the first wave of the pandemic during which thousands of people died, despite the phone being in action until the following spring.
In the former prime minister’s witness statement, he suggests that other leading players in the government at the time – which could include Sunak, Michael Gove and Matt Hancock – could hand over their phones with WhatsApp or Signal messages on them instead. It is unclear whether Johnson has yet handed over his diaries.
Matt Fowler, co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: “If Johnson and Sunak don’t provide the inquiry with the messages it has asked for, they need to face the full force of the law.
“The lengths they are going to to cover up these WhatsApps … are absolutely obscene. If half as much effort was put into learning from the mishandling of the pandemic as has been put into hiding critical evidence from the inquiry, we would be in a better position when the next pandemic comes.”
The high court ruled in July that the government must hand over potentially embarrassing WhatsApp and Signal messages to the inquiry, after the Cabinet Office refused to do so, saying some of the material sought was “unambiguously irrelevant”.
The inquiry’s chair, Heather Hallett, had asked the government to provide two years’ worth of messages, including from Sunak, Johnson and nearly 40 other senior figures and advisers.
The Cabinet Office brought a legal challenge against the inquiry’s demand, arguing the request was too broad. Its lawyers said the messages contained some references to personal information and comments about identifiable government figures.
Johnson, who had said when announcing the inquiry in 2021 that it must be “free to scrutinise every document”, opposed the case. He handed over his unredacted WhatsApp messages from May 2021 onwards to the inquiry, and said he would pass on all the messages before that point once he could get them off his phone.
After the high court ruling, the government said it would comply with the decision to hand over all relevant communications.
In his witness statement, Sunak, who is expected be the final witness in the second stage of the inquiry, said: “Having changed my phone a number of times over the last three years, I do not have access to the WhatsApp messages that I sent or received during the relevant time, and neither were the messages backed up.
“My expectation would be that if the officials on those groups had considered that any information being communicated by WhatsApp message needed to be preserved to form part of the official HMT record, then those officials would have taken steps to ensure that happened.”
In his own statement, Johnson, who is due to give two days of evidence in December, said: “With the assistance of a technical team, we have been able to retrieve messages from the old phone. There is a period for which messages were not retrievable (from 31 January to 7 June 2020 inclusive). The technical team has been unable to determine the cause of this.
“I do, however, anticipate that the content of the messages I cannot access should be held by others and I would happily consider them further if they can be provided.”
A spokesperson for Johnson pointed to the witness statement and said the former prime minister would continue to cooperate fully with the inquiry.
A government spokesperson said: “The government established the Covid inquiry to transparently establish the facts and we have submitted more than 55,000 documents in support of their work. To ensure the integrity of the inquiry is not undermined it is vital that any evidence submitted is heard in context and in full and so we will not be commenting on leaks.
“We are concerned that selective sections of evidence appear to have been handed to the media and all possible steps should be taken to guard against further leaks.”
Labour MP Nick Thomas-Symonds, shadow minister without portfolio, said: “As chancellor throughout Covid, the prime minister was at the centre of key decisions taken which had huge impact on decisions that were a matter of life and death.
“Victims’ families and the public will be rightly angered to learn that the prime minister who promised integrity and accountability now appears to be putting his own political concerns ahead of the interests of the country by blocking evidence to the Covid Inquiry.”
