Nicola Sturgeon faced on-the-spot questions today after it emerged this weekend she has reportedly wiped her messages from the height of Scotland’s battle with Covid.
Facing a large press pack, Ms Sturgeon claimed she had “nothing to hide”, but refused to address questions about whether messages had been deleted.
She insisted: “I have nothing to hide, I am committed to full transparency to this inquiry”.
“As the deputy First Minister has just said in the chamber, the requests and the responses at this stage are confidential until the inquiry decides otherwise so I cannot and will not go into the detail of those response right now”.
A journalist interrupted Ms Sturgeon to press for an answer on whether she deleted messages.
She replied: “Any messages I had, I handled and dealt with in line with the policies set out by the deputy First Minister… I will be setting out how I operated, how I worked during the pandemic; what I hold and what I don’t hold and the reasons for that”.
Ms Sturgeon argued that because of the number of WhatsApp messages handed over to the inquiry by key figures in the UK Government – including Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak – “there is 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, early morning to late at night; face-to-face meetings with those that 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.
The former SNP leader was also asked if she’s leaving herself open to claims of a coverup.
Ms Sturgeon replied: “I gave my all to the management of the pandemic”.
“Transparency – for the families affected, for everyone affected by the pandemic – matters really a lot to me”.
She said she expects to give evidence to the UK-wide Covid inquiry “early in the new year”.
Yesterday the group Scottish Covid Bereaved said that unless Ms Sturgeon has a “reasonable excuse” for deleting her WhatsApps, she should be fined and/or face imprisonment up to 51 weeks.
In a letter to Humza Yousaf, the group’s lawyer said he hoped a Section 21 notice with “criminal penalties” for failing to comply would “focus minds” and “encourage the most thorough process of complying with requests”.
Mr Yousaf and former deputy First Minister John Swinney are also among those who had their messages wiped.
Last week the inquiry heard that “very few messages appear to have been retained” from key ministers in Scotland, unlike UK Government ministers who handed over similar material “in high volumes”.
