UK Covid Inquiry has access to messages between Nicola Sturgeon and her colleagues, the former First Minister said in a statement. These informal messages were handed over to the inquiry last year. Sturgeon added that she had nothing intentional to hide and she was confirming this out of respect for those impacted by the pandemic. Earlier, the inquiry had heard that Sturgeon had deleted her messages.
Counsel to the inquiry, Jamie Dawson, had said that Sturgeon appeared to “have retained no messages whatsoever”. Her then-deputy, John Swinney, had set his WhatsApp messaging to auto-delete. Sturgeon also had not made it clear that her WhatsApp messages were deleted. However, she had said that she had nothing to hide.
Sturgeon wrote in a social media post that she does not intend to give a running commentary on the ongoing Inquiry. Instead, she will answer questions directly and openly when she will give evidence at the end of this month. She further claimed that her informal messaging was limited to a few individuals only as she conducted her Covid response through formal processes from her office and not through WhatsApp.
The UK Covid inquiry, which is currently taking place in Scotland for three weeks, was hearing evidence from Lesley Fraser, the director-general corporate at the Scottish government. Fraser told the inquiry that new technologies such as Zoom were being used during the pandemic and therefore records may not have been retained. Mr Dawson raised questions about the Scottish government’s summary of ministers’ use of notebooks and retention of messages
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