Watch Again: Nicola Sturgeon at the UK Covid Inquiry in Edinburgh - Session 1
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00:00:00 Good morning, my lady. Today's witness is the Right Honourable Nicola Sturgeon, MSP.
00:00:07 I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that the evidence I shall give
00:00:28 shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
00:00:35 You are Nicola Sturgeon? I am.
00:00:46 You very helpfully provided two statements to this module of the inquiry as well as a
00:00:50 number of other prior statements. The statements you provided to this module are under reference
00:00:55 INQ 000 339033. This is a statement dated 6 November 2023. Is that your statement?
00:01:02 It is.
00:01:06 Have you signed the statement?
00:01:07 I have.
00:01:08 Do the contents of the statement remain true and accurate as at today's date?
00:01:12 Yes.
00:01:13 You also provided a further statement to us under reference INQ 000 273980. This was a
00:01:20 further statement dated 16 November 2023. Is that your further statement?
00:01:25 Yes.
00:01:25 Have you signed that?
00:01:26 Yes.
00:01:27 Do the contents of that statement remain true and accurate as at today's date?
00:01:30 Yes. I provided some further information to the inquiry last week, which would usefully
00:01:36 be read alongside that statement, but yes.
00:01:38 Thank you. Some additional documentation rather than changing the text of the statement, I
00:01:41 think.
00:01:42 Indeed.
00:01:43 Thank you.
00:01:44 You were the First Minister of Scotland between 20 November 2014 and 28 March 2023.
00:01:51 I was.
00:01:53 You held office as First Minister throughout the period from January 2020 to April 2022.
00:01:59 I did.
00:02:00 That is, of course, the period of time with which this module is primarily concerned.
00:02:05 As First Minister during that period, you were head of the Scottish Government and so
00:02:09 had overall responsibility for Scotland's pandemic response and for engagement with
00:02:14 the UK Government and other devolved Administrations.
00:02:17 I did.
00:02:19 Could I ask you some questions about the way in which you and others in the Scottish Government
00:02:26 used informal methods of communication in order to discuss matters connected to the
00:02:33 pandemic?
00:02:34 In your statement dated 16 November—that is, INQ 000273980—at paragraph 48, you say,
00:02:44 "Throughout the pandemic, I sought to be open, transparent and accountable in respect
00:02:49 of all decisions being taken. While acknowledging some of the issues presented by the sheer
00:02:53 pace and magnitude of what we were facing in early 2020, I set out in my Module 2a statement
00:02:59 the high degree of formality around Scottish Government decision-making. Decisions were
00:03:04 informed, shaped and taken mainly through deep-dive sessions, gold discussions and Cabinet
00:03:10 meetings. I feel that the nature of the communication that has emerged from the UK Government has
00:03:15 created an impression that we were all communicating in such a way. That was not the case, certainly
00:03:21 not as far as communications I was party to are concerned. The culture within the Scottish
00:03:25 Government during the period in question was serious, formal, purposeful and collegiate.
00:03:32 During the pandemic, I did not make extensive use of informal messaging and certainly did
00:03:36 not use it to reach decisions."
00:03:39 Is it still your position today that you and the Scottish Government were open, transparent
00:03:44 and accountable in your actions, not just in your words, at all times throughout the
00:03:49 pandemic response in Scotland?
00:03:51 Yes, that is still my position. Openness and transparency with the Scottish public was
00:03:58 very important to me from the outset of the pandemic. I communicated to the public on
00:04:05 a daily basis for a lengthy period of time. We will not have got every decision right
00:04:12 and we will have made misjudgments. Undoubtedly, instances will be put to me today where, on
00:04:19 reflection, I will think that we could have been more transparent than we were. However,
00:04:24 given the nature of the emergency that we were confronted with, building a relationship
00:04:29 of trust with the public was important. In my view then and in my view now, that had
00:04:35 to be built on a spirit of openness.
00:04:39 Openness and transparency are fundamental concepts in the way in which the Scottish
00:04:45 Government seeks to represent the people of Scotland, is that not right?
00:04:50 Absolutely.
00:04:50 One can see, as we have seen in a number of documents, more general documents, but also
00:04:55 one specifically related to the pandemic response, for example, the national performance framework.
00:05:00 One sees those concepts repeated in that document, is that correct?
00:05:04 That is correct.
00:05:05 And indeed, in documents which we have looked at, which set out the approach which the Scottish
00:05:12 Government wished to take to the way in which it was dealing with the challenges of the
00:05:16 pandemic, again one sees the concepts of openness, transparency and accountability at the very
00:05:21 core. Is that correct?
00:05:24 Yes.
00:05:25 As far as a very important role that you played was concerned, the public communication strategy,
00:05:32 again these concepts were very much the bedrock of the way in which you tried to communicate
00:05:38 messages, information and decisions to the public in Scotland.
00:05:43 That is what I sought to do.
00:05:45 You say in the passage we have looked at that you did not use informal communications to
00:05:49 reach decisions. What do you mean by that?
00:05:53 Informal communications were not in any sense an extensive or a meaningful part of how I
00:06:01 conducted Government business in any way, but certainly not to reach decisions. I would
00:06:06 say that in relation not just to Covid but to Government generally. The number of individuals
00:06:13 with whom I would have any informal communication through—I am talking here about text messages
00:06:20 or WhatsApp—would be very limited. In the case of WhatsApp, probably no more than a
00:06:25 handful of people. I was never a member of any WhatsApp groups.
00:06:32 I think the two people with whom I would have had the most extensive communication would
00:06:38 have been my former Chief of Staff Liz Lloyd and Humza Yousaf. I believe the inquiry has
00:06:45 some messages between me and those individuals, which I had not retained, but they had. I
00:06:51 think they will give a sense of the nature of that communication. The communication of
00:06:58 that nature was not used by me for anything other than routine exchanges, logistics, and
00:07:07 passing on information. The exchanges with the individuals I have referred to will be
00:07:14 littered with things like a note coming to you through the system—I am giving you a
00:07:20 heads-up about that. That is the nature of the communication.
00:07:24 I understand that the inquiry may want to explore some elements of that. I will, of
00:07:30 course, answer questions about specifics, but that is the overall nature of that communication—it
00:07:35 is extremely limited. I operated on the basis that I would ensure that anything in communications
00:07:42 of that description were otherwise recorded on the Scottish Government's website. I
00:07:51 would ensure that there was anything of that nature.
00:07:54 We have heard others refer to recording salient information on the corporate record. Is that
00:08:00 what you are talking about?
00:08:01 Yes. This would be rare in my case, because I did not do Government business through informal
00:08:08 messaging in relation to Covid or any other matter. If there were salient points of substance,
00:08:18 I would ask myself whether they were recorded in the Scottish Government's record, either
00:08:25 because I had put them in or because they were referring to something that was already
00:08:31 on the record. If someone was, as I used as an illustration a moment ago, flagging up
00:08:37 something that was coming to me through the system—another example is in my exchanges
00:08:41 with Hamza Yousaf. For a period when vaccination was such a focus of all our efforts, he would
00:08:48 send me the vaccination uptake figures on a daily basis, which would come to me formally
00:08:55 and be published within a very short space of time. I would check whether there was anything
00:09:00 that required to be recorded on the Scottish Government system. I am absolutely firmly
00:09:07 of the view that there is nothing—the inquiry has seen some of these messages—in any informal
00:09:16 messaging that I would have been party to that could not have been seen and understood
00:09:23 through the formal systems and, indeed, through the public communications that I was engaging
00:09:30 in on a daily basis. I went through in great detail—some people perhaps thought that
00:09:36 it was too much detail sometimes—the issues that we were confronted with and dealing with
00:09:40 on a daily basis.
00:09:42 To be clear, to reconcile two parts of your evidence, you said that you did not use these
00:09:48 informal messaging systems, but you suggested that there would rarely be occasions when
00:09:53 you would have to transpose things onto the corporate record, which suggests that you
00:09:57 at least rarely used them.
00:09:59 Sorry, but to be very clear, I have not said—and I am not saying today—that I never used
00:10:05 informal means of communication. What I am saying is that I did so very rarely and not
00:10:13 even more rarely to discuss issues of substance or anything that could be described as decision-making.
00:10:20 I am sure that we will come on to the formal ways in which the Scottish Government took
00:10:27 decisions later on, but there was a high degree of formality around the decision-making of
00:10:31 the Scottish Government.
00:10:34 You mentioned a moment ago that there would be routine exchanges undertaken via these
00:10:38 media. Do you accept, based on at least the communications we have seen, that you did
00:10:45 undertake discussions around what decisions might be taken through these media?
00:10:52 There would be an element of reflecting on the decisions that we were having to make,
00:10:59 but I was doing that openly in daily briefings with the public, so I would not be reflecting
00:11:08 in any way where I was engaging in some secret course of discussion that I would not be sharing
00:11:15 openly during that.
00:11:19 Yes, there would be, and I think there have been, some exchanges discussed at the inquiry
00:11:24 in previous evidence sessions where I am saying about a particular decision. I am not sure
00:11:31 in my own mind what the right way to go is, but that would be something that I was trying
00:11:36 to formulate in my mind before a formal Cabinet discussion, where Cabinet would take the decision.
00:11:43 That is the extent of that.
00:11:48 Other exchanges would literally be the exchanges between myself and Humza Yousaf. Things like
00:11:55 Mr Yousaf saying to me, "I have just taken part in a Four Nations call. The note of the
00:12:02 readout will be on its way to you. If you want me to give you a call to brief you on
00:12:07 that before you get it, I will do that." That is the nature of the communication that I
00:12:14 would routinely have. I would say that it would be limited.
00:12:19 We heard evidence, as you may be aware, from one of the directors general within the civil
00:12:24 service in Scotland, Ms Leslie Fraser. She was responsible for the compilation of a number
00:12:32 of different Scottish Government policies around information and document retention.
00:12:38 She accepted in her evidence that the primary aim of those policies across Scottish Government
00:12:45 was to try to make sure that a reasonable amount of information was retained in order
00:12:50 to be able to give any interested Scottish citizen the material from which, among other
00:12:56 things, they could deduce how decisions had been taken. Do you accept that the messages
00:13:03 we have seen from others contain information that an interested Scottish citizen would
00:13:08 like to see in order to understand how decisions were taken in the pandemic?
00:13:15 Forgive me, Mr Dawson, if I perhaps have not seen all of the exchanges.
00:13:21 Of course.
00:13:22 I am not sure that I have seen exchanges that have been discussed at the inquiry where I
00:13:28 would accept—I am showing some today where I have to accept this—that the interested
00:13:35 member of the Scottish public could not see not just the decisions that were being arrived
00:13:43 at in the Scottish Government but the reasoning and the evidence behind those decisions from
00:13:48 the public record. As I have referenced already and as well known, I will not labour the point.
00:13:55 Almost every day during the pandemic, I would openly share with the public the state of
00:14:02 the pandemic, the difficult choices that it was posing for the Government, what we were
00:14:09 considering in reaching these decisions and what it meant for what we were asking the
00:14:13 public to do. There was a very open form of communication. I am not sure that I have seen
00:14:20 anything that I would say the Scottish public would not have had any idea that we were talking
00:14:25 about or considering.
00:14:29 It might be a matter for the Scottish public to judge, based on all the information that
00:14:33 was relevant to these matters, whether they felt that they had seen all the information
00:14:37 that they needed to be able to draw conclusions about the appropriateness and timeliness of
00:14:41 your decisions.
00:14:42 Let me be absolutely clear. I accept that. Of course, it is for the inquiry to judge
00:14:49 whether that is the case. I am simply sharing my views.
00:14:56 Again, I repeat this because I think it is significant and material. The means of communication,
00:15:03 the method and the frequency of communication that the Scottish Government was engaging
00:15:08 in meant that, on a daily basis, it was almost an open conversation with the public, which
00:15:15 we thought was important to encourage compliance with what the public were being asked to do.
00:15:23 These are public statements, and the question and answers after it would go through not
00:15:28 just the decisions that we had arrived at, but the considerations, the balances that
00:15:34 we were trying to strike, and the pretty invidious nature of some of the choices that we were
00:15:38 all being faced with.
00:15:40 You referred in the passage from your statement that we went to the fact that it had emerged
00:15:47 publicly through the procedures of this inquiry that a lot of this informal communication
00:15:52 had been done within the UK Government by WhatsApp in particular, but by other means
00:15:56 as well. You suggested that you felt that the nature of the communication that has emerged
00:16:01 in the UK Government has created an impression that we were all communicating in such a way.
00:16:07 We have, fortuitously, by way of example, seen very extensive exchanges between the
00:16:14 now First Minister and Professor Leitch, discussing their attitude to important moments within
00:16:22 the pandemic, important decisions they needed to take and important advice they required
00:16:26 ultimately to give to you in Cabinet and other fora. It appears from that, and indeed the
00:16:33 other messages which have now come to light, that informal messaging, in particular WhatsApp,
00:16:39 was a frequent part of the way in which the Scottish Government conducted its business
00:16:42 in Covid. Were you unaware of the fact that that was the case as First Minister during
00:16:48 the course of the pandemic?
00:16:49 The exchanges you refer to I would have had no knowledge of and had no sight of before
00:16:55 seeing them in the course of this inquiry. If you are asking me, Mr Dawson, did I not
00:17:01 know that anybody in the Scottish Government was using WhatsApp, of course that is not
00:17:04 the case. WhatsApp had become, in my view, probably too common a means of communication.
00:17:11 But I think the exchanges you are talking about would, certainly from what I have seen,
00:17:18 would not suggest that Government decisions were being taken through WhatsApp. WhatsApp
00:17:24 was a means of communication that people were using to exchange information on occasion,
00:17:31 sometimes to share views about things, and using language and, or rather, ways of describing
00:17:38 things that perhaps would not have been done in different forms of communication.
00:17:43 One of the reasons, and if I thought this before Covid and this inquiry, I certainly
00:17:50 think it even more strongly now, one of the reasons why I do not believe that WhatsApp,
00:17:55 for example, should be used for Government communication and decision-making is that,
00:18:01 you know, when I make a public statement or when I made public statements as First Minister
00:18:05 in this context, I would think very, very carefully about the words I used to try to
00:18:11 minimise as far as is ever possible the scope for what I was saying to be misinterpreted.
00:18:16 When people send messages on WhatsApp, they do not think, including me, you do not think
00:18:21 that deeply about how you are phrasing things and therefore messages, when they are looked
00:18:27 back at later on, can be open to different interpretations because people have not really
00:18:32 thought about the words they are using or the phraseology that they are using. And I
00:18:39 think that certainly would be true of some of the exchanges that the inquiry has been
00:18:43 looking at.
00:18:44 Would you as First Minister not have thought it to be important that Ministers and senior
00:18:52 officials would think deeply about the conduct of Government business, whether conducted
00:18:57 through WhatsApp or otherwise?
00:18:59 Of course that is the case, and in saying that I am not trying to suggest that people
00:19:04 were not thinking deeply. The form of, and I think every human being probably can recognise
00:19:10 what I am saying, the form of communication can influence the phraseology or the way in
00:19:17 which things are worded. And informal communication, I think, lends itself to very short, sharp
00:19:25 exchanges that would be very different if you were making a speech or putting something
00:19:31 in a formal paper for decision-making.
00:19:34 Can I say very clearly, when I was First Minister, I would not have expected any of my Ministers
00:19:40 or any of my officials to have been conducting substantive Government discussions and certainly
00:19:49 not taking Government decisions through WhatsApp or other informal means of messaging.
00:19:55 Thank you for that.
00:19:56 On 27 May 2020, as we covered with Mr Swinney yesterday, in the Scottish Parliament, in
00:20:01 response to a question about whether you would order a public inquiry into the Covid-19 outbreak
00:20:07 in care homes in Scotland, you replied as follows, "Of course there will be a public
00:20:11 inquiry into this whole crisis and every aspect of this crisis, and that will undoubtedly
00:20:16 include what happened in care homes."
00:20:18 So at that stage, you knew that there would be a public inquiry in the future into the
00:20:23 Scottish Government's response to the pandemic generally?
00:20:26 I always assumed there would be a public inquiry.
00:20:28 In fact, of course, as we know, you effectively had the power to order an inquiry.
00:20:33 And as it turned out in Scotland, we have more than one inquiry, so yes, I did.
00:20:39 On 3 August 2021, Lesley Fraser, who I mentioned a moment ago, and another civil servant whom
00:20:44 you'll know, Mr Kenneth Thompson, sent a "Do not destroy" email to Scottish Government
00:20:48 officials with the subject "Covid-19 independent inquiry record retention" explaining the
00:20:53 importance of retaining relevant material to the work of the inquiry.
00:20:57 Do you recall receiving that email?
00:20:58 I do not. As far as I am aware, I did not receive that.
00:21:04 You recall, I would imagine, in a general sense, that such a notification was sent out?
00:21:10 I would say this, that I don't think I would have required to see that to know that matters
00:21:18 that were relevant to matters of substance salient, relevant to the inquiry, should be
00:21:26 retained. And that I had a duty, as all ministers and officials would have had a duty, to ensure
00:21:34 that anything that they were exchanging in informal messaging, if they were not retaining
00:21:41 those messages in line with the policies that were in place, then there would be a clear
00:21:47 record of anything on the Scottish Government systems.
00:21:51 You said on the 24th of August 2021, at a Covid media briefing given by you, that the
00:21:57 Scottish Government had started the process of setting up the Scottish Covid inquiry,
00:22:01 which you mentioned a moment ago. You stated, "I believe that a full public inquiry has
00:22:05 a very important role to play, both in scrutinising the decisions we took, and indeed continue
00:22:10 to take, in the course of the pandemic, and also in identifying and learning lessons for
00:22:14 the future." Do you agree that in order to scrutinise decisions and learn lessons,
00:22:18 a public inquiry would need to see not just the decisions themselves, but the discussions
00:22:23 that led to the decisions being made or not made, including discussion of information
00:22:29 and advice?
00:22:30 Yes, I do agree with that. And what I would add to that, and let me say this is obviously
00:22:38 a matter for the inquiry to judge, in terms of any informal communications I had, which
00:22:44 as I have already said, were limited, both in terms of the number of people and the extent
00:22:49 of the communication. There would be nothing in those communications that was not available
00:22:57 to either the inquiry or the public through the record of the Scottish Government or indeed
00:23:02 in the very detailed public statements that were being made every day. I want to assure
00:23:10 the inquiry of that, that I take and took very seriously the duty that was on the shoulders
00:23:18 of me as First Minister and of the Scottish Government collectively to make sure that
00:23:22 this inquiry and the corresponding Scottish inquiry would have at its disposal all of
00:23:29 the evidence and material that would allow it to assess the decisions and the underpinning
00:23:34 reasoning and evidence for those decisions. Over the course of the pandemic, and forgive
00:23:39 me if I'm getting ahead of your line of questioning, we will no doubt talk about Cabinet papers
00:23:46 and minutes. Over the course of the pandemic, I think there would have been in the region
00:23:51 of 100 Cabinet meetings. For each of those, there would be detailed papers, detailed minutes
00:23:58 that would not just record the decisions that Cabinet reached, but that would look at the
00:24:03 different options that we assessed and discussed, that would narrate the evidence and the reasoning
00:24:10 behind the decisions that we arrived at, and Cabinet minutes would also have lengthy and
00:24:16 comprehensive summaries of the points made in the discussion around the Cabinet table.
00:24:22 Now, obviously, that is not all that the inquiry has at its disposal, but if it was all that
00:24:31 this inquiry had, that would be a comprehensive and very detailed account of every decision
00:24:39 that the Scottish Government took in the course of the pandemic.
00:24:45 As at May, at least, I think you've indicated already, you were fully cognisant of the fact
00:24:50 that there would be a public inquiry, yes?
00:24:53 Yes.
00:24:54 And in August 2021, you announced that there would be one?
00:24:58 Yes.
00:25:00 You knew at the time when you made the statement announcing the Scottish COVID inquiry that
00:25:04 material which you had used to exchange messages, informal communications, would assist in the
00:25:13 very important aims of the inquiry, scrutinising the decisions that you took?
00:25:18 Yes.
00:25:19 And you knew at that point that those messages had been destroyed?
00:25:24 I knew, yes, that I had operated in line with a policy that I had operated in line with
00:25:32 and advice that I had had from the outset of my time as a Minister to ensure that conversations
00:25:40 with others in government with any impact or relationship to government business shouldn't
00:25:46 be kept in a phone that could be lost or stolen, but properly recorded.
00:25:51 And I was very cognisant of, and had been from the start of the pandemic, so not just
00:25:56 at the points in time that you are referring to from the start of the pandemic, of my duty
00:26:01 to ensure that anything of salience, relevance, substance to the decision-making of the government
00:26:09 would be properly recorded through the Scottish Government record.
00:26:12 Thank you.
00:26:14 You were asked a question by a journalist from Channel 4 where he asked you, at that
00:26:20 very press conference in August 2021, "Scottish Government has a patchy record of disclosing
00:26:24 evidence when asked to do so.
00:26:26 Can you guarantee to the bereaved families that you will disclose emails, WhatsApps,
00:26:29 private emails, if you've been using them, whatever, that nothing will be off limits
00:26:33 to the inquiry?"
00:26:34 You responded, "I think if you understand statutory public inquiries, you would know
00:26:38 that even if I wasn't prepared to give that assurance, which for the avoidance of doubt
00:26:42 I am, that I wouldn't have the ability."
00:26:47 He asked specific questions about informal means of communication, including WhatsApps,
00:26:52 but you knew by that stage that your WhatsApps had been destroyed.
00:26:55 But I also knew that anything of any relevance or substance from any of that material would
00:27:01 be properly recorded in the Scottish Government system and, indeed, would have been communicated
00:27:08 in all likelihood by me through the daily media briefings that I gave.
00:27:15 The importance, in my view, is making sure that the inquiry has at its disposal all of
00:27:22 the evidence underpinning the decisions, as well as the decisions we were arriving at.
00:27:27 I operated from 2007 based on advice, the policy that messages, business relating to
00:27:39 government should not be kept on a phone that could be lost or stolen and insecure in that
00:27:45 way, but properly recorded through the system.
00:27:48 I would want to, again, underline that in my case that communication was extremely limited
00:27:57 and I would not relate to matters of substantive government decision-making.
00:28:07 But that wasn't the question you were asked.
00:28:08 You were asked the question as to whether you would disclose emails, WhatsApps, private
00:28:12 emails if you were using them, whatever.
00:28:14 You didn't ask the question as to whether the material that was contained within the
00:28:17 discussions exchanged by those media was recorded on the corporate record.
00:28:21 You asked whether the emails, WhatsApps, private emails, whatever, would be disclosed and you
00:28:25 gave an assurance that they would be.
00:28:29 As will have been the case on many occasions over the course of not just the Covid pandemic
00:28:36 but in my many years in politics, answering questions when you're answering questions,
00:28:42 you're trying to answer the substance of the question and when you look back at the literal
00:28:46 terms of the answer, it can be put to you in that way.
00:28:49 So I accept that and I apologise if that answer was not as clear, but I also want to be very
00:28:56 clear and give the inquiry a personal assurance that I am certain that the inquiry has at
00:29:05 its disposal anything and everything germane to my decision making during the process and
00:29:14 the time period of the pandemic and the factors underpinning those decisions.
00:29:21 That has always been important to me and it remains important to me, but more importantly
00:29:29 than that, it's essential to the scrutiny of the decisions that I will carry the impact
00:29:36 of these decisions with me forever and I want to make sure that those who come after me
00:29:41 in politics have the benefit of the learning, the things that my government did right and
00:29:49 the things that my government did not, that were not right or with hindsight that we wish
00:29:54 we had done differently.
00:29:56 I cannot say strongly enough how important that is to me.
00:30:02 These decisions were of a magnitude beyond what I had ever experienced and that is true
00:30:08 of decision makers everywhere and the impact of them I think about literally every day
00:30:18 and I want this inquiry and the Scottish inquiry to scrutinise those decisions so that we can
00:30:26 learn and future governments can learn appropriate lessons from them.
00:30:29 In case there's any doubt on the matter, Ms Sturgeon, when I delivered the opening
00:30:34 statement in this module we were keen to try to make it clear that our position with regard
00:30:39 to those decisions was that they were extremely difficult decisions and I think there can
00:30:44 be no doubt about that.
00:30:46 As regards your production of documents however, you did not produce to us any WhatsApp messages
00:30:53 or any other informal communications with your first statement dated the 6th of November
00:30:57 2023 despite the request that you do so.
00:31:01 At the time, for the reasons I have set out, I did not hold WhatsApp messages or text messages
00:31:09 at that point and as I have said, because I had gone through a process of making sure
00:31:15 anything of relevance, which would have been very, very limited, I could assure myself
00:31:20 would be available through the public record and the Scottish Government record.
00:31:26 When I was asked to double check when the inquiry sent another request for a statement,
00:31:34 I discovered an isolated text message with one individual, the then Deputy First Minister
00:31:41 of Northern Ireland, which I provided to the inquiry.
00:31:46 I also found, and again I apologise to the inquiry because I had not at the time thought
00:31:50 to look in this place because it would not be a normal means of communication, but when
00:31:58 I was racking my brains to see where I could find anything that might be relevant, I looked
00:32:03 at the DM function of Twitter and found there some messages with Professor David Schrider
00:32:09 and also some very limited messages with Professor Jason Leitch, which I then provided to the
00:32:14 inquiry.
00:32:16 I also sought and was provided through the Government with messages between me and Liz
00:32:23 Lloyd and Humza Yousaf, which I was aware the inquiry would have from them, but nevertheless,
00:32:29 because I then held them, passed them to the inquiry.
00:32:32 There is one exchange in the Twitter DM messages with Jason Leitch that I think gives an indication
00:32:43 of my approach to informal messaging, where he is raising something with me and I think
00:32:49 it is the last message in this exchange.
00:32:51 I in terms say to him, "If you want to talk about matters like this, come and see me properly.
00:32:58 This is not the place to do it."
00:33:02 That was my attitude to that kind of messaging.
00:33:06 Should we take that to be an instruction to Professor Leitch that if he wanted to carry
00:33:10 out such conversations where he was discussing important matters related to the pandemic
00:33:15 with you, you wanted to be clear to him that that was a matter which was not appropriate
00:33:20 for these media?
00:33:21 Yes.
00:33:22 It should be done more formally in person, discussions was your practice?
00:33:25 Absolutely.
00:33:26 I made it clear to him that that was my practice.
00:33:29 I think the exchange was related to hospital capacity and ventilation facilities in hospitals
00:33:37 at a relatively early stage of the pandemic.
00:33:41 Of course, Professor Leitch, we know, conducted extensive discussions related to important
00:33:45 decisions in the pandemic with others, including the current First Minister.
00:33:50 As I know you will appreciate, I have only seen exchanges that have been explored at
00:33:56 the previous evidence session, so I cannot talk in any way about the totality of those
00:34:00 messages.
00:34:02 I have not seen, to the best of my knowledge, anything that would suggest he was engaging
00:34:08 in decision-making.
00:34:09 There are exchanges, conversational exchanges.
00:34:16 Many of these exchanges that I have seen, and from other governments as well, I think
00:34:23 on WhatsApp would be the kind of exchange that, had people not been working remotely
00:34:31 and been in the same building as I was with key advisers throughout the pandemic, these
00:34:37 are the kinds of conversations that would have happened verbally, face to face, and
00:34:41 end up being translated to WhatsApp because of the nature of people's work environments.
00:34:47 Given the fact that you were in St Andrew's House, I think, quite a lot of the time, as
00:34:50 we heard from Ms Freeman, as she was, there were a large number of those verbal conversations
00:34:57 between you and others like Ms Freeman who are based predominantly there during the pandemic.
00:35:02 Isn't that right?
00:35:03 Yes.
00:35:04 I mean, the majority of the conversations that I would be having with certainly Ms Freeman
00:35:10 and the Chief Medical Officer at the time and other senior advisers would be face to
00:35:17 face in St Andrew's House.
00:35:21 I was in St Andrew's House from very early in the morning to very late at night, almost
00:35:27 every day for an extended period of time, as were these other individuals.
00:35:31 I think Ms Freeman did say seven days a week, your role there.
00:35:34 For a period, seven days a week, yes.
00:35:37 Were the salient points of those verbal discussions committed to the corporate record?
00:35:42 Yes.
00:35:43 So, at my private office, we're also, or not my entire private office, but key individuals
00:35:48 in my private office and they would have a rota, there would be somebody from my private
00:35:51 office in the building with me.
00:35:54 So salient points would be recorded as appropriate and fed through the system.
00:36:00 I think perhaps, if I may, there's two further points to be made there.
00:36:06 If I, as First Minister, am having a discussion with anybody that then requires action to
00:36:12 be taken, if that's not inputted to the system, action won't be taken.
00:36:18 That is how conversations turn into actions that are necessary.
00:36:26 The second point is just to reflect, particularly in the very early stages of the pandemic and
00:36:33 in the early stages of, well, certainly through March and into April 2020, there was a frenetic
00:36:42 pace of decision making and we were taking decisions at very short notice.
00:36:52 The situation was changing several times a day and we were all working at pace.
00:37:01 I would have conversations in the morning that by the afternoon the situation had changed
00:37:07 and so the nature of those conversations would be different.
00:37:10 I think it's, you know, three, four years on, it is difficult sometimes to appreciate
00:37:18 just how frenetic the pace of activity was at that time.
00:37:23 The fact that you're working at pace, though, doesn't alter the obligation to make sure
00:37:27 that salient points of conversations and messaging are on the corporate record?
00:37:30 Oh no, absolutely.
00:37:32 But for example, I remember on the 23rd of March 2020, the day that we entered what became
00:37:39 known as lockdown, having conversations because the advice that was coming at that point was
00:37:47 that we required very strict measures to suppress the virus at that stage.
00:37:54 The measures that had been introduced previously weren't bringing the R number down sufficiently.
00:38:00 I remember having conversations with Ms Freeman, the Chief Medical Officer at the time.
00:38:04 We then of course went into COBRA and those decisions were formalised through the COBRA
00:38:09 meeting and they'd be recorded that way.
00:38:12 So I suppose what I'm saying is the ways in which these conversations would become decisions
00:38:18 and then be recorded was perhaps different in the environment we were in at that point
00:38:24 than would be the case in normal times and normal government business.
00:38:28 Whereas with these verbal conversations, it wouldn't be possible for us to work out whether
00:38:33 the salient points of those had been transcribed to the corporate record, because although
00:38:36 we have the corporate record, we don't know what the conversations were.
00:38:39 In contradistinction, we do now have some messages, so we could compare the corporate
00:38:44 record to those messages and work out for ourselves whether the salient points had been
00:38:47 transcribed.
00:38:48 Yeah, I'm absolutely sure that you would be able to take messages and go to the corporate
00:38:53 record, go to the public statements that were made at the time and see all of that reflected.
00:39:01 It may not be the case that in every instance you will see, you know, conversation between
00:39:08 on this date and the reference on the corporate record tying those up, absolutely.
00:39:15 But I am absolutely certain that the salient points that we were discussing then would
00:39:20 be reflected on the corporate and indeed on the public record.
00:39:24 These were by their very nature, these were decisions that could not be kept secret, even
00:39:31 if we had wanted to, which we didn't, because these were decisions that were asking the
00:39:37 public to do things or more regularly not to do things that had to be communicated.
00:39:45 They were also decisions that had very significant impacts for the private sector, for the public
00:39:52 sector, for society as a whole.
00:39:54 They had to be recorded in a way that they could be actioned and communicated clearly,
00:39:59 quickly and effectively.
00:40:01 That may apply to the decisions themselves, that they couldn't be kept secret because
00:40:04 ultimately the public found out about them, the restrictions and everything.
00:40:08 However, the discussions relating to the decisions and how they had been reached could, it would
00:40:12 appear, be kept secret.
00:40:15 Again, I would like to give an assurance to the inquiry that contrary to there being any
00:40:21 desire on the part of me or my government to keep things secret, I would suggest that
00:40:26 the opposite was the case during the pandemic.
00:40:29 We went to great lengths to communicate not just the decisions.
00:40:36 I took a view very early on in the pandemic, as for others to judge whether it was right
00:40:41 or wrong, that if we were to achieve a level of compliance with the restrictions that we
00:40:49 were placing the country under, then it was important that the public didn't just know
00:40:55 what we were asking them to do but why we were asking them to do it and what the reasoning
00:41:01 was that had taken us to those decisions.
00:41:04 That's what I sought to do, sometimes effectively, perhaps sometimes not so effectively, on a
00:41:10 daily basis.
00:41:11 So we were not having discussions that weren't then being communicated to the public openly.
00:41:18 In the nature of not just government but life generally, it is not possible to record—and
00:41:26 I'm not even sure it's desirable to good governance, if I may say that—every single
00:41:32 word that is uttered in a conversation in government.
00:41:35 There needs to be, in government—and I think this is in the interests of good governance—the
00:41:40 ability for ministers with each other or ministers with advisers to have an open, thinking-out-loud
00:41:50 discussion before getting to the point of a proposal, let alone a decision.
00:41:55 But salient points about why we were taking decisions and what those decisions were, absolutely.
00:42:00 To go back to the question you initially put to me, Mr Dawson, absolutely, I firmly am
00:42:08 of the view that they will all be discernible from the corporate government record and,
00:42:14 indeed, over and above that, the public record.
00:42:19 We subsequently learned from your second statement that you had used various informal means of
00:42:26 communication for some messaging with Mr Youssef, Ms Lloyd, Mr Swinney, Ms Freeman, Dr Calderwood,
00:42:33 Dr Smith, Professor Leitch, Ken Thompson, Lesley Evans, Professor Sridhar, the First
00:42:40 Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, and the former Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland,
00:42:44 Michelle O'Neill.
00:42:45 Is that correct?
00:42:46 Yes.
00:42:47 You produced no messages with any of these individuals with your first statement.
00:42:51 Is that correct?
00:42:52 Yes.
00:42:53 But, as I also say in the statement, those messages would have been extremely limited.
00:42:59 If I take John Swinney, for example, it has never been our practice, not just during the
00:43:08 pandemic but generally, to text—I do not think I have ever WhatsAppped John Swinney,
00:43:12 and certainly if I have it would be the exception—but text messages would be very occasional.
00:43:18 The nature of the text messages that I would have with John Swinney would be, "Are you
00:43:23 free to speak?" or "Can I pop in to see you?"
00:43:27 It has just never been in the nature of it.
00:43:29 With some of the others, Catherine Calderwood was one of those who was in St Andrew's
00:43:33 House with me.
00:43:35 The number of people in the Scottish Government, however many thousands of people work in the
00:43:38 Scottish Government, that I hold a mobile phone number for is extremely limited.
00:43:43 It was not my method of communication with Mark Drakeford and Michelle O'Neill.
00:43:49 These are discussions with other government leaders that would have been recorded through
00:43:56 the normal systems.
00:43:59 I want to be very clear that it was not my practice to not just not take decisions through
00:44:08 informal messaging but have substantial, lengthy or detailed discussions about Government decisions
00:44:16 through these means.
00:44:17 It is not my style, it is not my practice, it has never been my practice, not least because
00:44:23 I do not think it is a good or effective or helpful way of reaching decisions, not just
00:44:30 taking decisions, but it is not a helpful process in reaching decisions either.
00:44:34 What sat messages between yourself and Mr Youssef and Ms Lloyd were produced by you
00:44:39 with your second statement?
00:44:41 Where did you get them?
00:44:42 They were provided to me through the Scottish Government.
00:44:45 You obviously did not have those on your own devices because you deleted them, had you?
00:44:49 I did not retain them in line with the procedure I have already talked about.
00:44:54 Are you creating a distinction between deletion and not retaining?
00:44:57 No.
00:44:58 You had deleted them, had you not?
00:44:59 I think deletion, forgive me, sounds as if it was not bothering to check whether any
00:45:07 information was being retained.
00:45:08 I was very thorough, not just in the pandemic but in all my work in Government, to ensure
00:45:14 that things were appropriately recorded.
00:45:17 In line with the advice I had always been given, since my first day in Government probably,
00:45:22 was not to retain conversations like that on a phone that could be lost or stolen and
00:45:28 therefore not secure.
00:45:30 Did you delete them?
00:45:31 Yes.
00:45:32 As far as the other messages are concerned, you could not produce yourself between you
00:45:37 and all these others.
00:45:38 You deleted all of those as well?
00:45:40 In the manner that I have, and after the process that I have set out, yes.
00:45:44 You also produced some direct Twitter messages that you have already mentioned with Professor
00:45:50 Leitch and Professor Sridhar.
00:45:52 Professor Sridhar also produced those messages to us, although slightly later than you, at
00:45:56 the beginning of December.
00:45:57 Did you have any discussions with her about the production of those messages?
00:46:02 I think I let her know that I had found messages and would be providing them to the inquiry.
00:46:05 So there was contact between you and her related to the messages?
00:46:09 Simply as a courtesy to let her know, yes.
00:46:14 Could I have a look please at INQ000287766?
00:46:27 We're both being admonished, I think, Ms Sturgeon, for speaking too quickly for the
00:46:31 stenographer.
00:46:32 If we can both try and speak a little more slowly, that would be very much appreciated.
00:46:38 These are some extracts from messages between yourself and Ms Lloyd.
00:46:42 I'm starting with the one on the 27th of October 2020, 7/10.
00:46:49 So just reading through them, it says, "I'm having a bit of a crisis"—this is you speaking—"I'm
00:46:52 having a bit of a crisis of decision making in hospitality, not helped by the fact I haven't
00:46:57 slept.
00:46:58 The public health argument says stick with 6pm/no alcohol for level 3, but I suspect
00:47:06 industry will go mad and I worry we could derail debate, though I suspect that won't
00:47:11 happen and we could commit to listening and changing if we felt necessary."
00:47:14 To which Ms Lloyd replies, "My instinct is 6pm.
00:47:18 That's the same as Central Belt now, but some more places open.
00:47:21 They have offered further mitigation, so we work with them on delivering those extra mitigations
00:47:26 and review at that point."
00:47:27 She then follows up, "The only alternative would be 8pm, but no alcohol.
00:47:31 Restaurants would like you for that."
00:47:34 To which you say, "It's the same as non-Central Belt.
00:47:36 Places can open, but only for food, non-alcohol.
00:47:38 8pm would be better.
00:47:40 I guess but not sure we can make much of a public health argument for 8pm alcohol at
00:47:46 level 2 and 8pm no alcohol at level 3."
00:47:50 Ms Lloyd replies, "That's why I would stick with 6pm, but if you want to compromise,
00:47:53 it would be about giving people regulated places to be in the winter rather than unregulated
00:47:59 homes.
00:48:00 But no alcohol, because it changes behaviour.
00:48:02 The difference from now would basically be it's colder and it's darker, so people
00:48:05 will be less likely to be outside."
00:48:08 You say, "Okay, we should probably stick with 6pm.
00:48:11 It's also random, but I think we need to be prepared for a bit of backlash.
00:48:16 I've also queried whether we really need the last entry times, and if we do, if we
00:48:20 should give on 9.30/10.30 as it stands.
00:48:24 There's nothing we can point to to say we've listened to industry."
00:48:27 Ms Lloyd replies, "Level 2, 8pm is listening to them."
00:48:32 And then she follows up, "And the whole allowing restaurants and pubs to stay open,
00:48:36 you say, 'I suppose' and then she says, 'There's quite a lot recently.'
00:48:41 I mean, they'll still be grumpy, but there it is."
00:48:45 I think it's meant to say.
00:48:48 This is an example of a messaging exchange that would be relevant to someone who would
00:48:53 be interested in knowing how decisions in this regard had been arrived at.
00:48:58 Yes, but in many respects, I think this exchange illustrates the answers I've been giving
00:49:07 you for context, and I'll be corrected if I'm wrong.
00:49:11 But I think this is 7.20 on the morning of the 27th of October 2020.
00:49:17 I think I was on my way to a cabinet meeting.
00:49:19 I would be in the car from Glasgow.
00:49:22 These would be decisions that cabinet was about to arrive at, and I am simply talking
00:49:27 about the things that I would then go into cabinet and we would talk about and then would
00:49:30 be recorded through the cabinet minutes and the decisions that we took.
00:49:34 I was probably later that day standing on a public platform talking about some of the
00:49:42 decisions that we'd faced, the options that we had and why we had arrived at the decision
00:49:48 that we have arrived at.
00:49:50 I can't see it right now.
00:49:51 There's a reference in there to "I have queried."
00:49:54 That's something I had obviously fed in as a question to the advisors who would have
00:50:01 been preparing the cabinet minute papers.
00:50:06 So in a sense, I look at this and I don't consider that there is anything in that that
00:50:13 wouldn't be reflected through the decision making and the evidence of the decision making
00:50:19 of the government and undoubtedly, hospitality and the impact of hospitality, the different
00:50:28 time limits, that was all very, very much to the fore in public discussion at the time.
00:50:33 I am certain that I would have been talking openly about some of these choices and the
00:50:37 fine balances of the very difficult decisions that we were having to take.
00:50:41 Will we find on the corporate record or some other public record that your position was
00:50:46 we should probably stick with six?
00:50:48 It's all so random.
00:50:51 The message exchange Mr Dawson starts with, and again, I said earlier on, the reason I
00:50:58 don't think WhatsApp messages should be used to have substantial government discussions
00:51:03 is because we can look at them for almost four years later and they're open to different
00:51:07 interpretations.
00:51:08 That message exchange that you read out started with me, you know, perhaps this is the kind
00:51:17 of thing I would prefer not to be on the public record, having a crisis of decision making,
00:51:21 you know, perhaps is not what I wanted people to know and I hadn't slept.
00:51:27 I at the 27th of October 2020 wouldn't have had a day off in since, you know, much, much
00:51:35 earlier that year before March and had been working.
00:51:40 I'm not saying that for sympathy.
00:51:41 That was my job and my duty.
00:51:44 And there were moments in that where the decisions that we were taking felt almost impossible,
00:51:50 that whatever we did, we would cause difficulty and harm to somebody somewhere.
00:51:59 And so a phrase like it's all so random, that probably simply reflects how I felt at 7.20
00:52:04 that morning when I hadn't had much sleep.
00:52:08 But by the time I got to cabinet, I'm sure that I would have collected my thoughts and
00:52:10 that we then had a proper discussion and reached a decision that was properly recorded with
00:52:17 a good and robust process around it.
00:52:20 This is a discussion related to an important decision made during the course of the management
00:52:25 of the pandemic?
00:52:27 That would have then been discussed at cabinet and recorded through.
00:52:32 You've seen all the minutes of the cabinet, but the minutes of all cabinet meetings, they
00:52:39 don't just record the decision we arrive at.
00:52:42 They will record if there's a paper given different options, they will record that and
00:52:47 they record a summary, a pressee of the discussion and the points made in these discussions.
00:52:56 Does that record record that your position was as it stands, there's nothing we can point
00:53:00 to to say we've listened to industry?
00:53:03 I would rig, I don't have the cabinet minute from that date in front of me, but I absolutely
00:53:14 am certain that around this point in particular, I will have spoken not just in cabinet meetings,
00:53:24 but publicly about the need to listen to industry, to listen to different groups in Scottish
00:53:35 society as we arrived at the decisions.
00:53:38 We were trying to take decisions that none of us wanted to be taking and we were trying
00:53:43 to reach those decisions in a way that we thought struck the right balance.
00:53:50 I'm sure we'll come on to talk later on about the four harms approach that the Scottish
00:53:53 government took and in that we were listening as much as we could to different viewpoints.
00:54:00 We were not always able to take account of those viewpoints because of the nature of
00:54:03 the decisions.
00:54:04 So, you know, I am absolutely certain that it would have been not news to anybody that
00:54:12 we were struggling with the impact on industry of some of these decisions and that we were
00:54:17 at pains to show that we, as far as we could, given the nature of the decisions that we
00:54:22 were taking, we were listening to reasonable points that were being made.
00:54:26 Do you think that an interested member of Scottish society or indeed this inquiry should
00:54:32 take no interest at all in the process by which this decision is made and this discussion's
00:54:37 role in it, including the fact that you say it's all so random, there's nothing we can
00:54:41 point to to say we've listened to industry.
00:54:43 Ms Lloyd's response, Ms Lloyd's involvement in the discussion, either generally or in
00:54:47 relation to this specific issue?
00:54:49 No, I'm not saying the inquiry should have no interest in that.
00:54:55 On the contrary, I think the inquiry does have an interest in this and I think the wider
00:54:58 Scottish public would.
00:55:00 What I am saying is I do not accept that it would have been unknown to the public at the
00:55:09 time that these were the issues we were grappling with.
00:55:14 Every day I was taking the public through the different issues that we were grappling
00:55:19 with, the balances we were trying to strike, the trade-offs that we were having to make
00:55:24 and the different viewpoints that we were trying as best we could to balance.
00:55:29 So, you know, in a sense this is an example of an exchange that, you know, we look at
00:55:35 it now in a WhatsApp but I don't consider that there is anything in that exchange that
00:55:41 would not have been known that was either on the record and through the cabinet minutes
00:55:47 or in public statements that these were exactly the kind of issues we were trying to reach
00:55:52 considered and balanced judgments on.
00:55:55 Thank you.
00:55:56 Could I take you to another document please?
00:55:58 This is INQ 000268017.
00:56:07 This is another exchange.
00:56:09 This is not a group that features you but it's another piece of evidence that we've
00:56:13 seen and I'd be interested in understanding your reflection on some of the content of
00:56:17 the exchange.
00:56:18 This is in your capacity as the former First Minister and First Minister at the time.
00:56:22 This is in a WhatsApp group chat called Covid Outbreak Group.
00:56:26 These messages were provided to the inquiry by Dr Jim McMenamin of Public Health Scotland
00:56:32 who did not delete his messages and not by the Scottish Government or its officials.
00:56:37 In the exchange at 27th of August 2020, you'll recognise no doubt the individuals involved.
00:56:44 Ken Thompson says, "Just to remind you seriously, this is discoverable under FOI.
00:56:49 Know where the clear chat button is."
00:56:51 To which Nicola Stedman replied, "Yes, absolutely."
00:56:55 Jason Leitch points out DG level input there.
00:56:59 Mr Thompson says, "Plausible deniability are my middle names.
00:57:04 Now clear it again."
00:57:05 Jason Leitch says, "Done.
00:57:07 Nicola Stedman, me too and someone called Donna Bell and me."
00:57:13 Were you aware in your capacity as First Minister that these sort of exchanges took place and
00:57:18 that a senior member of the civil service considered plausible deniability to be his
00:57:23 middle name?
00:57:24 I, as you said at the outset of the question, I was not a member of this group until some
00:57:31 of these exchanges were explored in evidence sessions last week.
00:57:34 I had never seen these messages before.
00:57:37 Did I know that there would be WhatsApp groups where officials were exchanging information?
00:57:41 I'm not sure I was particularly conscious of it, but I would have, had I been asked
00:57:45 to stop and consider that, I would have said, well, I would assume so given the nature of
00:57:49 how people were working.
00:57:51 I would absolutely expect all officials in the Scottish Government to retain in line
00:57:57 with Scottish Government policies information relevant to our decision making.
00:58:03 I look at that exchange and what I don't see is an exchange about the decisions we're
00:58:11 taking.
00:58:12 I see a light-hearted discussion between officials.
00:58:16 Ken Thomson, I know, has been before you and has given his interpretation of that, so he
00:58:23 can answer and has answered for himself.
00:58:26 I would read that as him reminding people of the need to be professional on WhatsApp,
00:58:32 even when discussing light-hearted things.
00:58:34 The other thing I would say about all of these individuals on the screen before me is that
00:58:38 they are all, in my knowledge and experience, and with some of them, particularly Ken Thomson,
00:58:43 this is extensive experience, they are public servants of the utmost integrity.
00:58:49 At this point and throughout the pandemic, they were public servants who were working
00:58:54 in a committed and a dedicated fashion in terms of the hours and they were working the
00:58:59 pressure under which they were working above and beyond probably the call of duty.
00:59:05 Ken Thomson is somebody I've worked with throughout my time in the Scottish Government
00:59:09 and he is a civil servant, as I say, of the utmost integrity and the utmost professionalism.
00:59:17 This group was called COVID Outbreak Group, obviously connected to the COVID pandemic,
00:59:21 yes?
00:59:22 If that is what you're telling me, yes.
00:59:25 That is the name of it.
00:59:26 It assumes, therefore, it's to do with COVID Outbreak Group, to do with COVID and therefore
00:59:30 relevant to the pandemic.
00:59:33 What Mr Thomson does here is that, despite recognising that material in this chat is
00:59:39 discoverable under freedom of information legislation, is to tell other individuals
00:59:43 in the group that they should clear it or delete it.
00:59:46 Is that not correct?
00:59:47 That is what is in front of me, yes.
00:59:50 Could I just go a little bit further down, please?
00:59:53 I'm just tracing the messages down to 16/17, so very shortly after the exchange that we've
01:00:02 had.
01:00:03 That's 16/17, so this is just a couple of minutes after, further down, you can see in
01:00:07 the background what happens in between.
01:00:11 There is something which Jason Leitch says at 16/17 which is redacted and then Ken Thomson
01:00:16 says the information you requested is not held centrally.
01:00:20 Is that a phrase you recognise?
01:00:22 Of course it is, yes.
01:00:23 Is that a phrase which often appears in freedom of information requests when documentation
01:00:29 is requested from the Scottish Government?
01:00:31 Yes.
01:00:32 Is it a phrase which indicates, as a result of a request, the Scottish Government is not
01:00:37 in a position to be able to provide the information it might otherwise because it doesn't actually
01:00:42 hold the information in its central repository?
01:00:44 Yes.
01:00:45 Does it look to you that this is Ken Thomson suggesting that that response is an excuse
01:00:51 often trotted out by the Scottish Government in response to freedom of information requests?
01:00:56 I absolutely accept that as an interpretation that can be put on it.
01:01:00 These are not my words.
01:01:01 Of course.
01:01:02 This is not an exchange I'm involved in, so there is a limit to how far I can go in trying
01:01:06 to interpret what he meant by that.
01:01:10 In looking at the exchange, my interpretation of it, which may or may not be correct, is
01:01:17 that he is reminding the others in the chat that the kind of things they are talking about
01:01:25 they probably shouldn't be on a chat like this.
01:01:29 Somebody says, "I was a nippy teenager in 1986," for example.
01:01:32 That's the nature of that.
01:01:35 Again, all I can repeat about Ken Thomson is that he is a civil servant, in my experience,
01:01:42 who took the responsibilities around recording and making sure that the Government record
01:01:52 was complete extremely seriously.
01:01:54 He's one of the civil servants, in my experience, who was not just most experienced in that,
01:01:59 but was most assiduous in that side of things.
01:02:02 So I can't answer for him.
01:02:05 I can speak about my experience of him, and I can give an interpretation based on the
01:02:11 context of that, that that was meant to be a light-hearted comment, but that is only
01:02:17 my interpretation.
01:02:18 Forgive me, the other thing I would say, like many people, given—and I can reflect back
01:02:26 to this time—our discussions in Government were very serious.
01:02:31 There are times when they were extremely sombre.
01:02:35 There were days when they were very, very dark, given the nature of what we were dealing
01:02:40 with.
01:02:41 And because the public as a whole were going through unimaginable trauma at the time, many
01:02:47 of them still living with that trauma, reading now light-hearted exchanges, I think, can
01:02:54 be very difficult, because it gives an impression that people were not taking the situation
01:02:59 seriously.
01:03:00 That could not be further from the truth.
01:03:01 I think what you have there are public servants who were working incredibly hard to take the
01:03:07 best decisions, to support ministers, to take the best decisions to keep people safe, who
01:03:11 were, perhaps as is human nature, occasionally engaging in light-hearted comment to try to
01:03:18 probably get themselves through the day.
01:03:22 That's my interpretation of what's before me, but I appreciate others may arrive at
01:03:26 a different one.
01:03:27 It's more, ultimately, to be determined that there was a culture of plausible deniability,
01:03:33 a culture of deleting messages that would be recoverable under FOI requests, a culture
01:03:40 of suggesting, in order to get out of FOI requests, that documents are not held centrally.
01:03:47 These would be abhorrent revelations, would they not?
01:03:51 Absolutely.
01:03:52 I have to be very clear, that is not the culture that I believe existed in the Scottish Government
01:03:58 during my time as First Minister, or indeed in my time as Deputy First Minister.
01:04:03 And if those things were deemed to be the reality of the culture in your time as First
01:04:10 Minister, that would be a serious breach of the bond of trust between the Government and
01:04:16 the Scottish public, which we discussed as being very much at the cornerstone of your
01:04:20 whole approach.
01:04:21 If that was the case, and let me repeat, it is not my view that it was, then yes, what
01:04:26 you're putting to me would be true.
01:04:28 I would again, and you will take me through, no doubt, lots of documentation later, but
01:04:34 that single page, and I'm sure there will be other pages of WhatsApp messages that you
01:04:38 could put in front of me, I would counterpose to the, you know, in the region of 100 Cabinet
01:04:44 papers and minutes that properly, seriously recorded the decision making and the underpinning
01:04:51 rationale for the decision making of the Government.
01:04:54 The bond of trust between any Government and the public at any time is of paramount importance,
01:05:02 but this was particularly the case during the extraordinary and unprecedented situation
01:05:09 we faced in the pandemic, and it was something I felt to my core every single day of that.
01:05:18 We saw in messages that we looked at in some detail with Professor Sridhar that you had
01:05:25 suggested to her that she might contact you via either your SNP email address or your
01:05:31 Government email address.
01:05:33 Was the suggestion that she might use your SNP email address an appropriate thing to
01:05:36 have done in the conduct of your Government business?
01:05:42 In reflection, perhaps I shouldn't have done that, but if I had been trying to direct her
01:05:47 to a personal email, SNP or otherwise, to keep something off the Government system,
01:05:56 then I would suggest I wouldn't also have given her my Government email address.
01:06:00 I wasn't, and obviously the inquiry has looked at that message, I wasn't pushing her in
01:06:06 one direction or the other.
01:06:08 What I was saying was, I think from memory in June 2020 or thereabouts, still a very,
01:06:15 very tough, critical phase of the pandemic, effectively what I was saying to her is, if
01:06:21 there are things you think I should know, don't stand on ceremony, I'd rather know.
01:06:25 And at that point I was, as I think any responsible decision-maker should have been, I was trying
01:06:31 to deepen my knowledge, I was trying to learn as much as I could about the virus and how
01:06:35 to combat the virus.
01:06:38 I was desperate to understand different perspectives, I was desperate to understand as much as I
01:06:43 could from the experiences and the responses of other countries.
01:06:47 Now, let me be very clear, the bulk of that was coming to me through Scottish Government
01:06:53 advisers, but I had a thirst to understand as much as possible and I simply wanted her,
01:06:59 she was somebody who had been appearing in the media a lot, I was periodically asked
01:07:04 about views that she had been expressing in the media and I wanted to have an understanding,
01:07:09 a deeper understanding of what they were.
01:07:12 If I'd been in any way trying to direct her to a private email address, I doubt if I would
01:07:19 have put my Government email address in there as well.
01:07:23 And of course the context of what we were talking about was, I think, a paper that she
01:07:27 was sharing with the wider advisory group.
01:07:29 At no point did Professor Sridhar send me anything that was, you know, for my eyes only,
01:07:35 that wasn't either publicly available information or information that was being shared with
01:07:40 the advisory group she was a member of.
01:07:42 I think we have seen some emails now that were very recently produced by the Scottish
01:07:46 Government between yourself and Professor Sridhar, which do, I think, as the direct
01:07:53 message exchanges suggest, indicate that she was forwarding on to you policy papers, which
01:07:59 I think your position is that those would otherwise have been made available to you,
01:08:01 is that right?
01:08:02 Have I got that right?
01:08:03 Yes, these were, she was a member, and I know the inquiry is aware of this, she was a member
01:08:06 of the Scottish Government Covid-19 advisory group, and these were papers she was preparing
01:08:11 for the group.
01:08:12 What the group did with them or what weight it gave to them, that would be for the group
01:08:17 to answer, but these were not things that she was sending, preparing for me and sending
01:08:22 to me alone, they were simply copies of things that were in wider circulation.
01:08:26 Would one assume, in accordance with the normal practice of the group, that the group would
01:08:29 decide whether that needed to be sent to you rather than Professor Sridhar, isn't that
01:08:32 right?
01:08:33 Yes, but at that point, and if this was the wrong approach to take, Mr Dawson, I apologise,
01:08:40 at that point, in dealing with an unprecedented situation and a pandemic, I wanted to understand
01:08:46 as much as I could, I wanted my decisions to be as informed as possible.
01:08:50 I read, perhaps one of the reasons why in the early exchange I was saying I hadn't slept
01:08:56 much, I read extensively from public sources of articles and research studies online.
01:09:02 I was trying to understand as much as possible and as quickly as possible, and I took the
01:09:08 view if somebody could help me with that, if somebody could send me something that I
01:09:11 would otherwise see, but I might see.
01:09:14 I'm not even sure, with my apologies to her, that I would have necessarily read everything
01:09:18 she sent me, because I might already have seen it or I would perhaps not think it was
01:09:23 particularly relevant, but I had a desire to have as much information in order to deepen
01:09:30 my understanding of the situation we were facing as I could.
01:09:35 And while there are things we may talk about today where I think if I was to go back and
01:09:38 have my time again I would take a different decision, I hope I wouldn't take a different
01:09:42 decision on that.
01:09:43 It was important to me to be as informed and as educated as I possibly could be.
01:09:50 You used a personal phone for the conduct of Government Business While First Minister,
01:09:55 is that correct?
01:09:56 Yes, I did.
01:09:59 And you never used a Government issued phone, is that right?
01:10:03 We've heard evidence from a variety of Ministers that they seem to use phones from a variety
01:10:08 of different sources, some Scottish Government, some personal, some Scottish Parliament issued
01:10:13 phones.
01:10:14 Is it appropriate in your view as the former First Minister that Ministers are conducting
01:10:19 business on phones that are not Government issued phones?
01:10:22 It was never suggested to me at any time during my period as First Minister that it was not
01:10:29 appropriate.
01:10:30 The reason I used a personal phone was that I didn't want to have multiple devices.
01:10:35 A Government phone I wouldn't have been able to do constituency business or party or personal
01:10:42 matters, and on a constituency one I can do the absolute, you get the picture here.
01:10:47 So I wanted to have one device.
01:10:49 It was never suggested to me that was inappropriate, and I don't believe it was inappropriate.
01:10:55 I think any phone, whether it is personal, Parliament, Government, is vulnerable to being
01:11:01 left on a train or lost somehow, which goes back to points I made earlier on about the
01:11:07 practice and the policy around how information is retained in Government.
01:11:12 We've been made aware of an article which appeared in the press just yesterday suggesting
01:11:17 that your expenses claims indicated that on the 19th of March you purchased a phone and
01:11:24 a number of SIM top-ups, and the article also suggests that you purchased a second prepaid
01:11:29 phone between 2020 and 2021, because it's based on your expenses claims, I think, and
01:11:35 the amounts are there.
01:11:39 Why did you purchase those phones and why did you?
01:11:43 They were purchased certainly through my expenses on my authority.
01:11:47 I didn't personally purchase them.
01:11:48 They were also not for use by me.
01:11:51 Many MSPs, I believe, did the same when the pandemic started and my constituency office
01:11:58 staff could no longer work.
01:11:59 Sorry to interrupt, Ms. Sargent.
01:12:01 Just to be clear, we're obviously keen on understanding whether they were used for your
01:12:05 business related to the COVID pandemic in the conduct of your role as First Minister.
01:12:10 They were not used by me at all.
01:12:11 They were used for some other purpose we have no interest in.
01:12:13 They were the phones that my constituency office landline were diverted to in the homes
01:12:17 of my constituency office staff.
01:12:19 I have never, to the best of my knowledge, seen, held and certainly not used any of these
01:12:25 phones.
01:12:26 Thank you for clarifying that.
01:12:27 My Lady, as I'm about to move on to a different topic, if that's an appropriate moment.
01:12:31 Certainly.
01:12:32 I suspect we may be getting messages that the stenographer is struggling.
01:12:36 I appreciate it's very difficult to change one's pattern of speech, but maybe if you
01:12:41 pause before asking the next question, Mr. Dawson, so the stenographer can catch up.
01:12:47 I'll try my very best, My Lady.
01:12:49 Thank you.
01:12:50 All rise.
01:12:51 Up past 11.
01:12:52 Thank you.
01:12:53 Thank you.
01:12:53 Thank you.
01:12:54 Thank you.
01:12:54 Thank you.
01:12:59 Thank you.
01:13:04 [BLANK_AUDIO]