SCOTTISH politicians and officials will be appearing before the UK Covid Inquiry during three weeks of hearings which will begin in Edinburgh this week.
The investigation into how the UK dealt with the pandemic is moving to Scotland, with a focus on the major political decisions made after Covid emerged.
Inquiry officials have not yet confirmed who will be appearing, but former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, former deputy first minister John Swinney and ex-health minister Jeane Freeman are likely to give further evidence after previously appearing last June.
The UK Covid Inquiry, which is chaired by former judge Baroness Hallett, began in June 2022 and has previously heard some explosive evidence from WhatsApp messages sent by Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser.
The messages from Dominic Cummings told the then prime minister that his Cabinet ministers were “useless f*** pigs” and criticise then-health secretary Matt Hancock as a “proven liar”.
A row also broke out last year over the disclosure of private messages written during the Covid crisis by Scottish ministers, with allegations some had been deleted from Sturgeon's phone.
She subsequently said she has "nothing to hide" and that she did not manage the Covid response by WhatsApp.
In October, Deputy First Minister Shona Robison pledged the Scottish Government would hand over more than 14,000 WhatsApp messages to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
Speaking in the Scottish Parliament, Robison said that work was under way to provide the inquiry with all informal communications – even ones that may have been deleted – after receiving a Section 21 notice from the Inquiry.
However, Scotland’s former chief medical officer will not be appearing before the inquiry for this phase of the hearings.
Dr Catherine Calderwood, who was forced to resign after visiting her second home during lockdown, has been excused from participation “for the foreseeable future” due to ill health, a document published by the inquiry shows.
Giving evidence to the inquiry last year, Sturgeon took a swipe about Brexit which led to a lawyer warning she was “in a witness box, not a soap box”.
Asked by Hugo Keith, lead counsel to the inquiry, whether planning for a no-deal Brexit was a “false economy”, Sturgeon said: “I don’t disagree with that, I think every aspect of Brexit has been a false economy, to put it mildly, but that’s another thing altogether.”
Keith interrupted: “Ms Sturgeon, I’m so sorry. That is a witness box, not a soapbox. We can’t have the political debate about Brexit vented here.”
Sturgeon replied: “With respect, I think you are asking me questions here that are very germane to the whole issue. It was deeply regrettable that resources had to be diverted from any other area of work and in particular, pandemic preparedness."
