Nicola Sturgeon claims she has 'nothing to hide' from Covid-19 inquiry but refuses to say if she deleted messages

Reports over the weekend said she was among ministers who had deleted WhatsApp messages from the pandemic period.

Nicola Sturgeon said she has “nothing to hide” from the public inquiries into her government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic while repeatedly refusing to say whether she deleted WhatsApp messages from the period.

The former first minister rejected suggestions the Scottish Government governed using the instant messaging app and said she was not a member of any WhatsApp groups.

Her comments followed confirmation from the deputy first minister, Shona Robison, that at least 14,000 WhatsApp messages would be handed over the inquiry.

Around 70 witnesses, potentially including First Minister Humza Yousaf, Jeane Freeman, John Swinney and key backroom officials, were involved in around 137 WhatsApp or other instant messaging groups during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ms Robison told MSPs that policies had been followed at all time and published documents from November 2021, after the commitment to hold an inquiry was made, that encourages those within government to delete “business conversations” within a month, once they have been recorded officially.

At the weekend, the Sunday Mail reported that Ms Sturgeon, along with other senior figures in government at the time of the pandemic, had deleted messages from the period.

However, when asked repeatedly whether that was the case, Ms Sturgeon refused to answer.

Asked by The Scotsman what she was trying to hide, she said: "I have nothing to hide.

"I am committed to full transparency to this inquiry and to the Scottish inquiry when it takes place.”

"And I am committed to that in the interests of everybody across this country who was affected by Covid.

"I, as I said before and I’ve said many times, every day for a very extended period of time, I with my colleagues did my best to keep people as safe as possible.

"It’s something that matters a lot to me that those who have questions, get answers to those questions.”

Ms Sturgeon was asked four times whether she had deleted WhatsApp and other messages, and repeatedly refused to answer, citing the confidentiality arrangement between witnesses and the inquiry.

She claimed she was “cooperating fully and constructively” and "committed to full transparency”, but said the request for information and their responses are confidential and she “cannot and will not go into the detail of those responses right now.”

The former first minister said she had followed the policies of the government at the time, and said she rejected suggestions the Scottish Government worked within a similar culture to Westminster.

“I will be setting out...how I operated, how I worked during the Covid pandemic, what I hold, what I don’t hold and the reasons for that,” she said.

"I understand that given the volume and the content of some of the messages from the UK Government, there’s an assumption that we all worked like that.

"I did not manage the Covid response by WhatsApp. For example I was not a member of any WhatsApp groups.

"I managed the Covid response from my office in St Andrew’s House from early morning to late at night, face-to-face meetings with those who were there, Zoom calls, Teams calls, and of course I stood up every day and I set out to the public the basis of our decisions and why we were taking certain decisions.”

She added: "Decisions were not taken by me on WhatsApp, that is not the policy of the Scottish Government.”

John Swinney, the former deputy first minister, earlier said he wanted to “complete my dialogue” with the inquiry and also refused to comment about deleted messages.

He told the BBC: "What I’m doing is engaging fully and constructively with the Covid inquiry to make sure that I’m satisfying all of what they are putting to me in the questions that they’ve asked of me.

“What I want to do is I want to make sure that I properly give the Covid-19 inquiry its place, that I deal with the questions the Covid inquiry have asked me, that I do that fully and comprehensively and obviously everybody will be able to question me about the substance of what I say to the Covid inquiry.”

In Holyrood, the deputy first minister committed the government to handing over 14,000 messages by November 6 following a legal notice.

She said a legal order, known as a Section 21 notice, had been required before the messages could be handed over because “a number of them were of a particularly personal nature, including photos of individuals’ children and personal medical details”.

With the order now received, Ms Robison told MSPs at Holyrood that work was “well under way” to ensure the messages would be handed over by the deadline set by the inquiry.

An undated policy document, said to be from November 2021 and published today, states that "business conversations” in mobile messaging apps should be deleted “at least monthly” after being recorded centrally.

However, this policy was brought in after a commitment to holding a public inquiry around Covid and after assurances from the then first minister all information requested will be handed over.

Ms Robison told MSPs: “To be crystal clear, there is not and never has been a need for material without business value to be retained as part of the corporate record.

"Colleagues exchanging pleasantries, chatting electronically about inconsequential or personal matters while working from home during lockdown, should not be retained.”

The statement follows counsel to the inquiry Jamie Dawson KC revealing last week that “no messages” from within the Scottish Government had been provided.

Ms Sturgeon, national clinical director Professor Jason Leitch, and chief medical officer Sir Gregor Smith, were then reported to have deleted their messages.

Opposition politicians at Holyrood pressed Ms Robison on the deleted messages, with Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross claiming “the stench of secrecy from this Government is overpowering”.

He added: “It was ridiculous for her to claim she’s committed to transparency while refusing, repeatedly, to confirm whether or not she deleted WhatsApp messages.

“This exercise in desperate stone-walling served no purpose other than further tarnishing Nicola Sturgeon’s diminishing reputation.”

Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie claimed messages had been “destroyed on an industrial scale”.

She said: “A public inquiry was talked about in May 2020. Why did ministers not retain evidence from then?

“It is inconceivable that a former first minister would not understand the importance of that evidence.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton, meanwhile, questioned if “life and death judgments” during the pandemic had ever “hinged around Nicola Sturgeon’s desire just to be different” from the then UK prime minister Boris Johnson.

On this, he said “we may never know” because “messages deleted at the very top of the Scottish Government erased the process by which ministers weighed the politics and science behind the decisions required of them”.