Covid WhatsApps: There should be a motion of no confidence in SNP government - Brian Monteith

Destroying ministerial correspondence or conversations is beyond indifference or incompetence, it is an obstruction of the justice that should flow from establishing the truth surrounding decisions made during the Covid-19 pandemic.

When Ciaran Jenkins of Channel 4 News asked Nicola Sturgeon at a press conference about Scotland’s Covid Inquiry, “Can you guarantee to the bereaved families that you will disclose emails, WhatsApps, private emails if you’ve been using them. Whatever. That nothing will be off limits in this inquiry?”

In a typically patronising manner, Nicola Sturgeon replied, “If you understand statutory public inquiries you would know that even if I wasn’t prepared to give that assurance, which for the avoidance of doubt I am, then I wouldn’t have the ability. This will be a judge-led statutory inquiry.”

If the former First Minister and members of her then cabinet, and the subsequent First Minister, Humza Yousaf, and his cabinet – including the Greens – deleted texts between themselves and their officials in the past (and have continued that approach until now), it is beyond doubt a breach of public trust that must be held to account. The opposition parties must force a motion of no confidence in the Scottish Government. A mere censure would not suffice.

All of our MSPs need to place themselves on the side of truth, transparency and plain ordinary decency in public life – but more so government ministers and officials, for it is they who deliberate and take counsel on decisions that may have life or death repercussions.

Only by making available their written records that establish how they arrived at their decisions can we understand their intentions were honourable and based on considering the facts before them rather than, say, exploiting party advantage to the cost of the vulnerable and ill.

Why should we expect to see the texts of conversations, the e-mails, the notes and minutes of meetings? Firstly, it should be best practice throughout Scottish Government to record how decisions were reached, not least for the likely eventuality that if decisions were later to be contested or become catastrophic the errors could be established and procedures or policies changed to avoid mistakes in the future.

Moreover, it is naïve to expect politicians to have an honest relationship with the truth. It is to their advantage to promote a narrative that embellishes their respective roles in government in the hope that it assists their re-election. It is a service to the truth that records which might show a narrative to be self-serving or corrupted are available for public inquiries or historians to then correct our false perceptions.

We are already seeing current ministers such as Patrick Harvey and Lorna Slater of the Greens making light of the need to keep records or use official phones – removing the pressure to conduct themselves in favour of the public good.

There can be no basis for destroying texts or any other evidence that the public or a public inquiry might have rights of access to. The Scottish Government’s own official policy, laid out in regulations in 2011 and updated in 2020, decrees such evidence be maintained. Further, a statutory public inquiry into decisions around the Covid-19 pandemic was first announced in May 2020 – it is unconscionable that any government politicians or officials would not retain their own personal records that would be relevant to that inquiry.

We also have seen nationalist political leaders not only promising to make digital evidence available to the Covid-19 public inquiry, but demanding it of UK Government politicians for the UK Public Inquiry that started last year, well ahead of the separate Scottish process. We have then learned from the publication of some texts between UK ministers and officials of the doubts about what policies to follow and how (often naïvely) decisions were taken. We need to know what happened concurrently in Scotland.

Thankfully the UK evidence was not destroyed and will properly inform the UK inquiry in its findings – but not in Scotland. Instead we now find it is unlikely such evidence exists because leading ministers and officials deleted their texts rather than leave them to be archived. That suggests a conscious decision to avoid public scrutiny and be accountable for their actions.

Such ministers and officials, past or current, putting themselves beyond the accountability of the public cannot surely be allowed to stand? It must be called out and if the Scottish Government were to fall as a result it is only right the Scottish public be then given the opportunity to elect a new one. A motion of no confidence requires the support of only 25 MSPS for it to be tabled for debate and a simple majority for it to take effect. It is in the interests of the opposition parties to jointly agree such a motion, submit it and work for its passing. If the Scottish Government is removed and no new First Minister is appointed within 28 days an election must be held.

Members of the Scottish Parliament from the SNP and Greens would undoubtedly be expected to vote with their government, but an appeal should be made to their conscience to do the right thing. Nationalist MSPs of any party or none can surely see the behaviour of some of their SNP colleagues has brought disgrace on their cause and should be of a mind to support a no-confidence motion – or stand condemned by their willingness to condone such behaviour.

The denial of evidence to the Covid-19 public inquiry should make any minister or official unfit for public office. In respect of those bereaved by Covid-19 no compromise should be countenanced towards such unconscionable behaviour.

Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European Parliaments and editor of ThinkScotland.org