(C) OpenDemocracy This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Tory minister Alister Jack admits deleting WhatsApps sent during Covid [1] [] Date: 2024-02 A Conservative minister has admitted deleting WhatsApp messages sent during the pandemic before the start of the UK Covid inquiry. “I deleted all of them,” Alister Jack, Westminster's secretary of state for Scotland, told today’s inquiry hearing in Edinburgh. It is the first time a minister in the UK government has admitted wiping texts sent during the Covid-19 pandemic. Jack told the hearing he had deleted the messages in November 2021 to free up storage space on his phone. Then-prime minister Boris Johnson announced there would be an official Covid inquiry in May 2021 and hearings began in June 2022. What do you think? Win a £10 book voucher for sharing your views about openDemocracy. Tell us The minister told the inquiry he “did not take government decisions by WhatsApp”. He added: “That will be borne out by the WhatsApps of ministers that you do have. You will see that that was not something that I was in the habit of doing, and I certainly had not done. I’m a bit of a luddite.” Jack also said he “was not aware” of any government policy that related to the retention of communications, though he now regrets deleting the texts “because of the inquiry”. He said: “Knowing what I know now, I would have sought a different solution for my lack of storage capacity.” Today is the final day of module 2A of the inquiry, which looks at decision-making by the Scottish government during the pandemic. Earlier this week, Scotland’s former first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, also admitted deleting WhatsApp messages sent during the pandemic. Like Jack, she denied making decisions on the messaging app. Boris Johnson last year denied deleting 5,000 missing WhatsApp messages sent between February and June 2020, during the early stages of the UK’s pandemic response. Asked why the messages were no longer accessible, Johnson told the inquiry: “I don’t know the exact reason, but it looks as though it’s something to do with the app going down and then coming up again, but somehow automatically erasing all the things between that date when it went down and the moment when it was last backed up.” In the closing submissions of the current module, Claire Mitchell, counsel for the Scottish Covid Bereaved said ministers’ decisions to delete WhatsApps “have robbed the bereaved of those contemporaneous messages and, with them, answers to questions”. She said: “It was in memory of those loved ones that the bereaved campaigned for a public inquiry because they wanted answers. They did not campaign for this inquiry to discuss WhatsApps and the minutiae of Scottish government guidelines. “It is a matter of deep regret for the bereaved that these important matters have been, through no fault of the inquiry, overshadowed by the absence of WhatsApps.” Mitchell said that the Scottish Covid Bereaved “hope that those within the Scottish government reflect on the fact that each minute this inquiry spent [...] addressing the deletion of WhatsApp messages was a minute that could not have been spent exploring substantive matters”. Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, last week apologised for the Scottish government's failure to preserve WhatsApp messages. He also announced plans for an external review of the government’s use of mobile messaging apps. The inquiry continues. openDemocracy is fundraising to pay reporters to cover every day of the public hearings. Please support us by donating here. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/covid-19-inquiry-alister-jack-delete-whatsapps-covid-inquiry-scotland-secretary/ Published and (C) by OpenDemocracy Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/