Meeting of the Parliament 31 January 2024
The Covid-19 pandemic affected people across the globe, and every single person in Scotland. The public were forced to spend months effectively restricted in their homes, unable to see family and friends. They were prevented from doing the activities that they loved, in the places they loved to go, with the people they loved to spend time with. Children missed out on crucial education; examinations in schools, colleges and universities were affected. Important milestones were delayed or cancelled altogether and, perhaps most devastatingly of all, so many people were denied the chance to say a final goodbye to loved ones in their last moments.
Those were the hard sacrifices that people in Scotland made to protect one another: sacrifices that they made because their Governments asked them, and because they believed that those actions were being taken forward for the right reasons. They believed that their protection and the protection of their fellow citizens was the number 1 priority—the only priority—for Government in those difficult times. They believed that, even if different decisions were being made across the United Kingdom, those were based on sound public health advice.
Now, nearly four years on from the start of the first lockdown, the work of the UK Covid inquiry has let us see just how blatantly the Scottish National Party Government abused that trust. This morning, Nicola Sturgeon was asked why she had got rid of all her WhatsApp messages despite knowing that a do-not-destroy order was in place. She was asked why she had assured a journalist that all her messages would be handed over to the inquiry despite knowing, when she gave that answer, that she had already deleted them.
Nicola Sturgeon has apologised for giving unclear answers, but she should be apologising to the people of Scotland for much, much more. Nicola Sturgeon should apologise for destroying vital evidence. Nicola Sturgeon should apologise for misleading the press and the public about deleting those messages. Nicola Sturgeon should apologise for breaking a clear promise to be open. Nicola Sturgeon should apologise for her secrecy, her dishonesty and her arrogant disregard for transparency.
The rules of this Parliament prevent me from describing Nicola Sturgeon using the only language that I think truly reflects what she did. While I am not allowed to say that Nicola Sturgeon is a liar and the UK Covid inquiry has exposed her lies, I say this: the evidence proves that the former First Minister deliberately made statements that she knew to be untrue and deleted key evidence that she knew would be requested.
However, in this Covid inquiry, we have learned about more than just the culture of secrecy in the SNP Government. Rather than treating the pandemic with the seriousness and sobriety that it deserved, we had the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, who is now the First Minister, and the national clinical director joking about “winging it”. During a pandemic that had killed 10,000 people in Scotland by that point, they were joking about “winging it”. Maybe that is why Humza Yousaf offered to take £100 million out of the national health service budget when it was on its knees during the pandemic.