First Minister Humza Yousaf has denied deleting WhatsApp messages amid claims that members of the Scottish Government deleted messages during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the former Health Secretary from 2021-2023 he was obligated to hand over WhatsApp messages for the ongoing UK Covid-19 inquiry.
A member of the counsel, Jamie Dawson KC, said 70 parliament members were asked to hand over their messages, but said “very few appear to have been retained.”
The First Minister claimed the Scottish government had told government figures not to delete messages to prevent potential embarrassment.
However, later Yousaf argued that there is a Scottish government policy which advises the deletion of social media messages after 30 days.
Additionally, the Scottish inquiry issued a “do not destroy” order in August 2023, meaning it would be illegal for government figures to delete their messages concerning the government’s response to the pandemic.
Yousaf commented on the allegations, stating:
“I have kept and retained all of the WhatsApp messages and I am more than happy to hand them over to the Covid inquiry.”
Furthermore, the Deputy First Minister, Shona Robison, stated that a legal order was required before the request could be complied with, adding they would provide 14,000 messages by November 6th.
There have also been claims that Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon destroyed messages.
Sturgeon responded by saying she has “nothing to hide.”
She added that she is “committed to full transparency to this inquiry and to the Scottish inquiry when it takes place, and I’m committed to that in the interests of everybody across this country who was affected by COVID.”
However, Sturgeon and her deputy John Swinney have declined to comment on what they have kept and deleted, as she stated she did not run the pandemic response via WhatsApp and was not a member of any group chats.
This comes after it was reported last week that National Clinical Director Jason Leitch deleted his messages everyday during the pandemic, meaning he was unable to hand them over to the inquiry.
The inquiry was announced by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to review the government’s response to the pandemic.
The report with the conclusions of the research is expected to be published by early summer 2024.
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