The UK Covid inquiry will investigate evidence that ministers in Scotland failed to properly fund social care and to fully protect those at greatest risk from the virus, it has emerged.
Heather Hallett, the chair of the independent inquiry, was told that Nicola Sturgeon’s decisions as first minister would come under detailed scrutiny during a three-week hearing in Edinburgh devoted to the Scottish government’s response to the pandemic.
Jamie Dawson KC, the Scottish counsel to the inquiry, said the key decisions taken by Sturgeon’s government would be tested, including whether it could have reacted faster to the first outbreaks, potentially saving thousands of lives in the process.
Dawson said the inquiry had already heard that ministers in Boris Johnson’s government in London had dithered and delayed as health experts issued their first warnings about the devastating potential of the virus in early 2020.
The same questions would be asked of Scottish ministers and officials, despite the limitations on their powers. Other European countries were locking down as the “rampaging” virus spread, overwhelming hospitals.
Dawson said: “Should they have acted more quickly in response to the emerging, lethal threat? Did delay cost lives?”
In a lengthy and detailed opening statement, Dawson said evidence had already emerged that Sturgeon’s government had been ill-prepared for the crisis, partly because it had relied heavily on UK government-led pandemic planning that had focused on flu outbreaks.
The hearing had opened with testimony from Scottish survivors of coronavirus and relatives of the dead, in a 20-minute video. One witness, Jock, said he suffered from severe mental ill-health yet was excluded from any special support measures. “No one was fighting for us,” he said.
Dawson said Jock’s evidence would be a “significant theme” of the Scottish hearings. The inquiry had received evidence there had been ineffective consultation with vulnerable people and also minority ethnic communities, elderly people and care home residents, he added.
Some were particularly affected by the lockdown, digital exclusion and social distancing laws. Ministers knew Scotland had the UK’s worst health outcomes and life expectancy figures per capita.
Dawson said: “The evidence suggests there was a lack of account being taken by the Scottish government, of the nature and effects of the pandemic on particular groups, regarding the particular and disproportionate effects of the virus on them, the particular and disproportionate effects of countermeasures, and the support or care which would normally be provided.
“Furthermore … the evidence suggests there was a lack of funding for particular needs based on the increased needs created by the virus, for example a lack of funding for social care.”
He added that other significant areas would include:
Whether Scottish ministers covered up the first recorded Covid outbreak in Scotland, from a Nike conference in Edinburgh in February 2020.
The Scottish government’s imposition of local lockdowns on individual towns and cities, causing anger from council and business leaders.
Whether ministers tried to pursue a “zero Covid” strategy even though it had a porous border with England.
Whether Scottish ministers were unfairly excluded from proper Treasury funding and decision-making by the UK government.
Summing up, Dawson said all citizens correctly expected their governments to plan properly for emergencies such as pandemics.
“Those who are charged with taking the key decisions in the management of the pandemic response in Scotland and in the exercise of their public responsibilities require to be held to account for the decisions they took, or at times did not take.”
Danny Friedman KC, counsel for the disability groups Inclusion Scotland and Disability Rights UK, said the Scottish government prided itself on its human rights policies but there was “an abyss between the rhetoric of national policies and what happens on the ground”.
Vulnerable disabled people experienced the sudden withdrawal of home support, which meant the loss of food, hygiene and medication; “mass death” in residential settings; and “severely compromised” education for disabled children.
Geoffrey Mitchell KC, for the Scottish government, acknowledged its decisions caused pain, isolation and distress, and said had it had the financial powers to do so, with hindsight it would have locked down earlier.
But, he added, Covid 19 posed “unprecedented systemic threats” to global health, healthcare systems, the economy and wider society. Even so, the Scottish government was clear it “provided governance that was effective and efficient”.
