PRESS RELEASE – 15TH JANUARY 2024 – UK COVID INQUIRY BEGINS SESSION IN EDINBURGH ON 16TH JANUARY
Edinburgh International Conference Centre, The Exchange, 150 Morrison Street, Edinburgh, EH3 8EE –
Inquiry begins at 10am- A press conference will take place outside the Inquiry at 9.30am on Tuesday, 16th January. Present at the hearing will be members of the Scottish Covid Bereaved including Gillian Woolman, Mary White and Maggie Waterton.
Core UK decision-making and political governance – Scotland (Module 2A)
Statement by Aamer Anwar – Lead Solicitor- Scottish Covid Bereaved
“On Tuesday 16th January at the start of Module 2a, UK Covid Inquiry sitting in Edinburgh, we will make an opening statement on behalf of the Scottish Covid Bereaved at the UK Inquiry. In the coming days we will hear testimony from those senior Government Ministers in Scotland and the UK, the former First Minister, present First Minister as well as senior civil servants.
If the protection of life is the pre-eminent duty of every government owed to the people, then the massive numbers of those who died is the marker against which each government must be judged. Why did we lose life on a such a devastating scale? Despite the benefit of time – of watching in real time the wave of covid sweep towards the UKs shores. The politicians, in particular the Prime Minister Boris Johnston, ‘prevaricated, trollied, and flip-flopped’ in deadly days of delay during which action ought to have been taken as the disease quickly multiplied and overtook the UK. The toxic, misogynistic and macho atmosphere at the centre of UK Government was presented as an environment to get the best out of people.
In evidence Boris Johnson seized upon the idea that in a future pandemic any Prime Minister should speak to the whole UK as if it was a revelatory idea, rather than the actual job he should have been carrying out. Senior UK Politicians appeared unable to answer questions put to them. The Scottish Covid Bereaved wish to say, loudly and clearly to politicians in Scotland who will give evidence in this Module, that they want better – on behalf of their relatives, they deserve better– they want politicians to answer questions put to them directly, to reflect upon their time during the pandemic and they want them to wholly engage in the process of finding out what happened putting politics and political careers aside : quite frankly the work of this Inquiry more important.
In Module 2 some of the best evidence – the most unguarded, contemporaneous evidence – came from informal methods of communications such as WhatsApps and texts. The sorry history of the difficulty that this Inquiry has had obtaining those documents from the Scottish Government, is a cause of considerable concern to the SCB. Media reports have suggested that senior figures in pandemic decision making – such as Nicola Sturgeon and Jason Leitch – have failed to retained messages. The SCB hope that, whatever evidence may be gleaned from surviving WhatsApps, nothing of significance has been lost as a result of this apparently willful deletion of messages.
As the Inquiry will no doubt hear, in March and April 2021, promises were made not only to the SCB but the people of Scotland in the manifesto on which the members of the Scottish Government stood, that there would be a public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic. It ought to have been obvious to politicians, advisors, and civil servants at least from then if not earlier, that the evidence of contemporaneous discussions in relation to the pandemic response would be of vital importance to the subsequent inquiry. Were no steps taken to secure these messages? Did the deletion of messages continue after Spring 2021? They look forward to hearing how our politicians and civil servants attempt to justify this position.
As of June last year, there were more than 17,000 deaths in Scotland where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate. Each one of those deaths was a tragedy. While witnesses in this Module may point to opinion polling during the pandemic favourably contrasting the Scottish Government’s communications and strategy with those of the UK Government, positive poll numbers are no consolation to the bereaved.
If Bute House was not as chaotic as Downing Street, if the Scottish Government’s public health messaging was to be preferred to that of the UK Government, if at no point were decisions in Scotland taken for political reasons, why did so many lose their lives in Scotland? Did our politicians fail to protect some of the most vulnerable in our society, such as those in care homes?
Were cancellations of mass gatherings “totemic”? Were decisions taken lift lockdowns at a different time from England just for the sake of doing things differently, or a reflection of a different stage in the progress of the virus? Was the decision to change the masks in schools policy another example of taking a separate decision from the rest of the UK? Was the Scottish Government sidelined? Excluded from crucial decision making? Were meetings of COBR a sham, to “be nice” to the Devolved Administrations? Was the democratic process in Scotland undermined by the UK Government?
Equally, were politicians happy to accentuate political and constitutional differences to distract from similar policies either side of the border? Was valuable time and resources wasted pursuing a futile elimination strategy? The SCB hope these questions will be answered in full.
The Scottish Covid Bereaved want to know the truth of what took place in those early days, to know about the decisions which directly impacted on the death of their loved ones. The knowledge of what happened can never take away their grief, but it may save the lives of many in the next inevitable pandemic, that at the very least is the legacy they are entitled to expect.”
