Civil servants were warned not to delete Covid correspondence

Responding to the story in the Express newspaper which reveals that civil servants were told to keep their correspondence in August 2021, raising questions about why key figures, including Nicola Sturgeon, allegedly deleted their Covid WhatsApps, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:

"The public just don’t have any trust for the SNP on the issue of their Covid Whatsapps.

"Junior civil servants were being instructed not to delete anything that might be relevant to future inquiries, yet it seems that Ministers were happily going home every night and systematically erasing their messages. As such, key discussions between high level people may be lost to the inquiry forever.

"We need answers about how ministers and other key stakeholders weighed the evidence against the politics and arrived at key decisions. I'm concerned that we will never get this clarity and that, as a result, key questions will remain unanswered. That will mean the bereaved families at the heart of this may never get closure or a sense of understanding."