Cole-Hamilton: We must not allow political failings of Covid to happen again

Commenting ahead of the UK Covid Inquiry’s report on governance and decision-making, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has said that we must not allow the political failings of the pandemic to ever happen again.

On Thursday 20th November, the UK Covid Inquiry will publish its report on Module 2 ‘Core UK decision-making and political governance’.

The report will make recommendations based on the evidence of senior political figures during the pandemic, including John Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon, Kate Forbes and Humza Yousaf.

During their evidence sessions, the inquiry heard how former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon held “Gold Command” meetings for which there are no minutes. These meetings excluded other cabinet ministers.

The inquiry also heard that Nicola Sturgeon “retained no messages whatsoever” and that John Swinney, who was Deputy First Minister during the pandemic, deployed WhatsApp’s autodelete function.

Nicola Sturgeon had previously made an unambiguous commitment on national television to retain all her records and hand them over to judges.

Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:

“The months of evidence leading up to this report produced some very distressing findings.

“We learned that John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon shrouded government business in secrecy during the pandemic.

“From the clandestine meetings that locked out the rest of Cabinet to the mass deletion of WhatsApp messages, this was a government that tried to minimise scrutiny of the rules and policies being set. In the process, they broke their promises to bereaved families and forever denied them a full understanding of the culture and calculations behind key decisions.

“This report will no doubt be difficult reading for all those whose lives were ripped apart by Covid. We owe it to them to ensure lessons are learned and prevent these political failings from ever happening again.”