Jack: I didn’t delete some of my pandemic WhatsApps – I deleted them all

The Scottish Secretary told the Covid inquiry he ‘regrets’ the move, but he insisted he did not take Government decisions on messages.
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack appeared before the inquiry on Thursday (Jane Barlow/PA)
PA Wire
Craig Paton1 February 2024
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Scottish Secretary Alister Jack deleted “all” of his WhatsApp messages in November 2021 in a bid to free up space on his phone, he told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

Giving evidence on Thursday, Mr Jack was asked about his use and retention of informal messages – a running theme since the inquiry moved to Scotland for a period to look into how the country handled the pandemic.

Mr Jack also used his appearance before the inquiry to rubbish claims made by former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon in emotional evidence that she did not seek to politicise the pandemic.

The Scottish Government has been under pressure over its message retention policy, with guidance issued in November 2021 for ministers and senior officials to delete messages at least monthly with the salient points and decisions from them stored on an internal system.

Asked about his own messages at the inquiry, Mr Jack said: “I didn’t delete some of the message – I deleted all of them.

“I deleted WhatsApps from my mother, my wife, my friends – I mean I just deleted all my WhatsApps – because that created the capacity that allowed my phone to carry on.”

The Scottish Secretary said he previously had a phone with 64 gigabytes of storage, but now has 512 gigabytes of capacity on his current device.

“At the time, I didn’t think anything of it,” he added.

Mr Jack told the inquiry he did not conduct “Government by WhatsApp”, preferring to speak to colleagues on the phone or face to face.

I knew that I did not take Government decisions by WhatsApp

Alister Jack

Under questioning from Claire Mitchell KC, representing the Scottish Covid Bereaved group, Mr Jack was asked if he thought it would have been relevant to the inquiry, or if it would be helpful, to retain the messages to aid his recollection of events during the pandemic.

“No, I didn’t – I was quite keen for my phone to start working again,” he said.

“More importantly, I knew that I did not take Government decisions by WhatsApp and that will be borne out by the WhatsApps of ministers that you do have – you’ll see that was not something that I was in the habit of doing.”

But the Scottish Secretary did admit he should have found a different way to free up storage on his phone.

“I think if I could turn the clock back, know what I know now, I would have sought a different solution for my lack of storage capacity,” he said.

“I’m a bit of a luddite – I’m the only member of the Cabinet not to have any social media accounts.

“But that’s no excuse – I regret that I deleted my entire account.”

Those regrets, Mr Jack told the inquiry, are due both to the inquiry and “because I hadn’t saved some family photographs and bits and pieces that maybe I should have done”.

Earlier in his evidence, Mr Jack hit out at Ms Sturgeon following her appearance before the inquiry on Wednesday.

She repeatedly fought back tears as she claimed she took accusations she sought a different approach to the virus from the UK Government to advance the cause of Scottish independence “very, very seriously”.

Ms Sturgeon said: “People will make their own judgments about me, about my government, about my decisions, but for as long as I live, I will carry the impact of these decisions, I will carry regret at the decisions and judgments I got wrong, but I will always know in my heart, and in my soul, that my instincts and my motivation was nothing other than trying to do the best in the face of this pandemic.”

But Mr Jack said: “I watched that evidence from yesterday and I didn’t believe it for a minute,” he said.

“I think Nicola Sturgeon could cry from one eye if she wanted to.”

He went on to say it was “inevitable there would be tensions” between the Scottish and UK governments given their different political positions on the union.

“The then first minister (Ms Sturgeon) saw her job as leader of a nationalist government to break up the UK.

“Devolution works very well but works very well when both governments want to work together.

“But when one government wants to destroy the UK and destroy devolution, then there are tensions.

“Those tensions existed before the pandemic, during the pandemic and they exist now today.”

Ms Sturgeon was questioned at the inquiry about her government’s decision not to disclose an outbreak of Covid-19 in February 2020 to the public – a decision she said she would reverse in hindsight.

On Thursday, Mr Jack said the UK Government was also not informed of the outbreak, despite both he and then UK health secretary Matt Hancock having spoken to then Scottish health secretary Jeane Freeman at the time.

He said Mr Hancock only discovered the outbreak when newspapers had contacted him about the issue.

At the start of his evidence, Mr Jack expressed his sadness for those who lost their lives during the coronavirus pandemic and gave his condolences to the bereaved.

Responding to Mr Jack’s evidence, an SNP source said: “Alister Jack is a man who couldn’t believe that Boris Johnson was unpopular amongst Scots – his inability to believe the plainly obvious speaks for itself.”

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