Unreserved apology from Yousaf

Humza Yousaf offered an “unreserved” apology for the Scottish Government’s “frankly poor” handling of requests from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry for WhatsApp messages to be handed over.

The Scottish First Minister told the inquiry he accepted this would have caused “serious grief and retrauma” for those who lost loved ones during the pandemic.

He also said that the government should have enforced Covid testing on patients without symptoms of the virus who were being moved from hospitals into care homes “sooner than we actually did”.

Mr Yousaf gave his evidence to the inquiry, currently sitting in Edinburgh, shortly after announcing an external review into his Government’s use of mobile messaging.

He began his evidence by “acknowledging the trauma and the grief that so many families and individuals faced” as a result of Covid.

Mr Yousaf said: “I want to offer my condolences once again to every single person who has been bereaved by Covid.

“However let me also acknowledge it is not sympathies that they require from witnesses, but straight answers to straight questions.”

Asked about WhatsApp messages from the time of the pandemic, which the inquiry requested from the Scottish Government, Mr Yousaf said: “Let me unreservedly apologise to this inquiry, but also to those who are mourning the loss of a loved one, who were bereaved by Covid, for the Government’s frankly poor handling of the various Rule 9 requests in relation to informal messages.

“There is no excuse for it, we should have done better and it is why I reiterate that apology today.”

With information contained in such informal messages transferred on to the Scottish Government’s official record, Mr Yousaf told counsel to the inquiry Jamie Dawson KC that “for a long time, the corporate mindset of the government, the organisational mindset of the government, was because the corporate record had those key decisions and salient points, that was the only thing required to hand over to the inquiry”.

But Mr Yousaf conceded there was “clearly a gap” in the mobile message policy in relation to how material in informal messages should be retained.

“That is why I have instructed an externally led review to look at this issue,” he said.

He later told Claire Mitchell KC, representing Scottish Covid Bereaved ,that he accepted this situation had caused “serious grief and retrauma for those you represent”.

He added: “There’s no excuses from me – that should have been handled better and in the future will be handled better.”