Following the Covid Inquiry’s evidence sessions in Scotland, Scottish Labour has set out three major questions that have been left unanswered.
The party has warned that “spin, secrecy and the destruction of evidence” by the SNP government have frustrated the Inquiry’s work to uncover the truth about care homes such as Crosslet House in Dumbarton, pictured above.
The three key questions Scottish Labour has put to the SNP are:
- Why were untested and Covid-positive care home residents discharged into care homes?
- Why was the Scottish Government’s recording keeping during this period so poor?
- Has Humza Yousaf mislead Parliament?
First Minister Humza Yousaf, his predecessor NIcola Sturgeon, John Swinney and Jeane Freeman, formerly Health Secretary.
While the scandalous decision to discharge untested and Covid-positive patients into care homes came under scrutiny at the Inquiry, neither Nicola Sturgeon nor Jeane Freeman shed any light on who exactly made this decision or why.
The evidence also raised fresh questions about the Scottish Government’s record-keeping, particularly around WhatsApp messages and meeting minutes.
Some of most senior members of the government at the time of the pandemic, including the former First Minister and Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney, confirmed to the Inquiry that they deleted their WhatsApp messages.
However, the Inquiry received inconsistent and often contradictory evidence about the Scottish Government’s guidance on message retention.
The Inquiry also saw evidence that major decisions were discussed within “Gold Command” and Scottish Government Resilience Room meetings, but no minutes were kept of these discussions.
This has all raised difficult questions for Humza Yousaf, given he made an unequivocal promise in Holyrood that all requested emails, texts and WhatsApp messages would be handed over to the Inquiry.
Shortly after making this commitment in the Parliament, Humza Yousaf told the Covid Inquiry that he had deleted his own messages monthly based on his understanding of the guidance, suggesting he must have already known that messages had been deleted.
“Despite the extraordinary work the Inquiry is doing to uncover the truth, the SNP’s spin, secrecy and destruction of evidence has left us all with unanswered questions.
“The abhorrent decision to let Covid run rampant through care homes has still not been explained, and apologies are cold comfort without any accountability.
“The SNP government’s woeful record on transparency has been exposed with messages being deleted on an industrial scale and key meetings going unrecorded. Humza Yousaf promised the Parliament and the people of Scotland that everything the Inquiry requested would be turned over – but that promise is now in tatters, along with Scotland’s trust in the SNP. The SNP must give Scots the answers they deserve and come clean on these key issues.”
Meanwhile, here are the different accounts of Scottish Government guidance on message retention:
- Kate Forbes said she did not delete any WhatsApps and was only made aware that the guidance
- John Swinney said he had deleted his messages and that was the advice he had received since entering government in 2007.
- Nicola Sturgeon said she had deleted all of her messages based on advice she’d been given since her first day in government.
- Jeane Freeman said she did not delete any WhatsApps and was not aware of any advice to do so.
- Humza Yousaf initially said he had deleted messages in line with his understanding of the Scottish Government guidance, but he later recovered them.
Comments on Gold Command and SGRR meetings:
- The Covid Inquiry confirmed that it doesn’t have minuted records from meetings of the Gold Command or the Scottish Government Resilience Room, making it “difficult to understand what the ultimate decision-making process was”.
- Humza Yousaf said “there should have been” minutes from Gold Command meetings.
- Kate Forbes said she was surprised that minutes weren’t taken at these meetings.
- Humza Yousaf stated the Scottish Government is “urgently” examining the missing Gold Command records.
Humza Yousaf’s comments at FMQs, 29 June 2023:
Humza Yousaf: Yes, they will. […] To ensure that there is simply no doubt whatsoever, any material that is asked for—WhatsApp messages, emails, Signal messages, Telegram messages or whatever—will absolutely be handed over to the Covid inquiries and handed over to them in full.
In October 2023 Humza Yousaf’s evidence to the Inquiry stated that he had “Deleted all messages after a month for cyber security purposes as per their understanding of the Scottish Government Mobile Messaging Apps Usage and Policy”. He later said he was able to retrieve them from an old phone.
Scottish Ministerial Code 2023 Edition: It is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to the Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead the Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the First Minister.