Meeting of the Parliament 15 November 2023
I am sure that the Deputy First Minister’s brain fog will have sounded like clarity to her, but it does not sound like clarity to anyone who is watching.
What remains unclear is when the First Minister told the inquiry that he did not have messages. Was it before or after having committed, in June, to supplying all the messages in full? Perhaps time will tell on that.
However, that is not all. Three weeks ago, counsel to the UK inquiry stated that it had asked the Scottish Government for copies of informal messages such as WhatsApps in February. On 31 October, the Deputy First Minister told Parliament that the UK inquiry first asked for messages in September, and the First Minister repeated that claim on 2 November. He said:
“The messages were asked for in September, just a matter of weeks ago.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2023; c 17.]
Both the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister directly contradicted the counsel to the inquiry’s statement on 26 October. It was only after being forced by the UK inquiry that the Deputy First Minister sought to correct the record.
If that was the extent of the falsehoods, it would still be an open and shut case, in my view, in terms of that investigation on misleading Parliament. However, the reality is that it goes further. The true scale of the cover-up that many fear is taking place is still unclear, because this SNP Government has repeatedly refused to answer even some of the most basic questions. The inquiry has made it clear that there is no issue of confidentiality with some of the basic questions and answers. That is just another false excuse from this Government.
The First Minister has still failed to tell Parliament how many of the 70 ministers and officials have failed to comply with the “Do not destroy” notice and how many have deleted messages. There is still no answer on that. Why did the Scottish Government hand over redacted legal advice to the inquiry when it provided legal advice in full to other judicial inquiries in the past? Still no answer. We have now had a clarification that unredacted legal advice will be supplied, but the question remains: why did the UK Covid inquiry have to fight with the Government to get legal advice that it is entitled to? Why did the Government have to be shamed in the Parliament before it did what it has done for every single judicial inquiry in the past?
It has also been reported that SNP ministers and special advisers use SNP and private e-mail accounts to communicate. I ask again: how many e-mails from SNP accounts have been handed to the inquiry? If it is none, why is that?
The counsel to the UK inquiry has said that, if the information that the Government has now provided is insufficient, the inquiry will want to know why—but so, too, will this Parliament. The First Minister has lost control of his Government and, in my view, he requires to be referred for an investigation into misleading the Parliament and trying to cover that up. We were promised full transparency and co-operation with the inquiry, but the Government has failed. As much as the Government tries to hide and hope that it all just goes away, for the sake of the families, it must and will be held to account.
I move amendment S6M-11247.1, to insert at end:
“; considers that there should be binding sanctions for ministers who breach the Scottish Ministerial Code, and calls on the Scottish Government to provide a date by which the requested legal advice will be made available, unredacted, to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry, and to set out to the Scottish Parliament how many emails from personal and party email addresses have been shared with the UK COVID-19 Inquiry as part of its response to the Inquiry’s request for evidence.”
15:21Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.