Scotland had no plan for a non-flu pandemic, Nicola Sturgeon tells Covid-19 inquiry

The former first minister said her government ‘did not get everything right’

Scotland had no plan for a non-flu pandemic ahead of Covid-19 arriving in the country, Nicola Sturgeon has told the UK public inquiry.

The former SNP leader told the inquiry in London there was “thinking” within government around how to deal with infectious diseases which were not flu before the outbreak, but nothing was ever properly laid down in documents.

She accepted that Scotland’s planning was “inadequate”, and said: “The plan was for a different type of pandemic than the one we unfortunately were confronted with.”

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry has been set up “to examine the UK’s response to and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and learn lessons for the future”. The first public hearings have focused on the “resilience and preparedness” of the UK and its governments.

The inquiry heard how, in Ms Sturgeon’s opinion, the Scottish Government - of which she was health secretary at the time - based its planning for a future pandemic on the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic.

Ms Sturgeon told the inquiry: “What there wasn’t, and I think this is the significant gap, is there was no set plan, and as I say that’s not the same as saying there was no thinking, into how we dealt with a pandemic that has the features and characteristics of flu in terms of the transmissibility but also the severity and, what we came to understand in terms of the symptomatic transmission, of Covid-19.”

She added: “The questions in my mind, literally every day, are not so much did we lack a plan but did we lack capabilities for dealing with a pandemic of the nature of Covid-19.

“And obviously I’m talking there about contact tracing, testing, infrastructure in particular.”

Ms Sturgeon was asked about Brexit and how it affected the Scottish Government’s plans to prepare for a pandemic.

She said she was “very aware of the necessity to divert resources” from other priorities to look at the potential for a no deal Brexit.

“We had no choice, had a no deal Brexit happened, the consequences would have been very severe,” she said.

"It stands to reason, that with so much focus on Brexit, there would be less resource for other aspects of emergency planning.”

Questioned if this was a “false economy”, she answered: “I think every aspect of Brexit has been a false economy.”

Ms Sturgeon was then warned she was speaking at a “witness box, not a soap box”.

Before her evidence the hearing concluded Ms Sturgeon took questions from lawyer Aamer Anwar, acting on behalf of the Scottish Covid Bereaved group.

Mr Anwar asked to what extent did the Scottish government carry out an equalities and human rights assessment of its plan, to which Ms Sturgeon responded the Scottish Government carried out different impact assessments in both the preparedness and the response phase of the pandemic.

He then asked to what extent the plans would work with protected characteristics such as age and race, to which Sturgeon replied: “That would have been part of impact assessments that would be carried out routinely on Scottish government work and planning.”

Ms Sturgeon’s evidence was followed by that of her deputy first minister during the pandemic, John Swinney.

When asked to give examples of the “pragmatic co-operation” between the Scottish and UK governments in terms of preparation, Mr Swinney said: “Examples of that would be collaboration around some of the expert advice that was available.”

This included interacting with groups like Sage, he added, and co-operating on procuring PPE.

When asked whether pandemic planning should have been UK-wide, Mr Swinney said: “I would say that, yes.”

Asked why there was “no real financial pandemic planning put in place for support or counter-measures”, Mr Swinney said the terms of the devolution settlement do not allow a reserve to be built up.

“The Scottish Government is specifically prevented from building up a reserve that it can deploy for eventualities of this type,” he said.

He said the UK Government’s economic intervention during the pandemic was “very welcome” and “saved many people’s livelihoods from great jeopardy”, but also demonstrated the scale of the financial challenge created by the pandemic.

The first module of the UK Covid-19 inquiry, looking into preparedness for the pandemic was formally opened on July 21 last year, but the public hearing only started in June of this year.

Former Prime Minister David Cameron appeared last week, and told the inquiry it was a "mistake" not to consider different types of diseases when preparing for future pandemics - in particular, Mr Cameron said "group think" meant his government did not focus enough on pandemics other than flu.

Also appearing before the inquiry, former chancellor George Osborne rejected claims his austerity programme had left the NHS in a "parlous state" ahead of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Osborne even suggested his cuts better prepared the UK to tackle the outbreak.

However, the head of the UK's Health Security Agency said austerity measures left public health services "denuded" during her time at the microphone stand.

Professor Dame Jenny Harries told the Covid Inquiry that budget cuts placed local health officials under "significant pressure", and community infection prevention became a "declining resource".

Former health secretary Matt Hancock faced a gruelling three-hour session in front of the inquiry, where he insisted he is “profoundly sorry” for every death caused by Covid-19 and admitted it was a “colossal” failure to assume the spread of the virus could not be stopped.

Mr Hancock said he understood some people would find it difficult to accept his apology, but added it was “honest and heartfelt”.

He also told the inquiry that the “central failing” which hampered the UK’s response, common with the rest of the western world, “was the refusal and the explicit decision that it would not be possible to halt the spread of a new pandemic – that is wrong and that is at the centre of the failure of preparation”.