Ministers are gearing up to take the official Covid inquiry to court over its demand they hand over unredacted messages from Boris Johnson by this afternoon.
The Cabinet Office is unwilling to meet the 4pm deadline set by the investigation into how the pandemic was handled to to release, in full, the ex-prime minister’s WhatsApp conversations and diaries.
Probe chairman Baroness Hallett – who was hired by Mr Johnson – has warned that failure to comply with her demand to release the material under the Inquiries Act would amount to a criminal offence.
But ministers are resisting, believing that she is asking for ‘unambiguously irrelevant evidence’ that would represent a ‘serious intrusion of privacy’.
It means that ministers could end up taking action in the High Court to limit the reach of an official inquiry it set up.
The Cabinet Office is unwilling to meet the 4pm deadline set by the investigation into how the pandemic was handled to to release, in full, the ex-prime minister’s Whats-App conversations and diaries. Probe chairman Baroness Hallett has warned that failure to comply with her demand to release the material under the Inquiries Act would amount to a criminal offence.
Lord Kerslake told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘There’s some cover-up going on here to save embarrassment of ministers. But there’s also the Cabinet Office fighting for a principle of confidentiality.’
They have already provided more than 55,000 documents, 24 personal witness statements and eight corporate statements, with parts that lawyers for the Government have deemed irrelevant to the probe having been redacted. The Cabinet Office believes the inquiry does not have the power to compel it to release the ‘irrelevant’ material as it could set a harmful precedent.
Ministers are also concerned that WhatsApp messages could identify junior officials.
Last night Whitehall sources told the Daily Mail that there was no change in the Cabinet Office’s position, but talks between lawyers continued amid hope there could be a ‘middle ground’. ‘It’s not the case of an ‘everything or nothing’ approach,’ one insider said.
If there is no breakthrough, the Government could seek to challenge Lady Hallett’s demand by way of judicial review. According to the notice seeking the unredacted messages, the inquiry is requesting conversations between Mr Johnson and a host of government figures, civil servants and officials, including England’s chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty. Messages with then-foreign secretary Liz Truss, then-health secretary Matt Hancock and then-chancellor Rishi Sunak have also been requested.
The inquiry had also asked for ‘copies of the 24 notebooks containing contemporaneous notes’ made by Mr Johnson in ‘clean unredacted form, save only for any redactions applied for reasons of national security sensitivity’.
In a ruling last week, Lady Hallett rejected the argument that the inquiry’s request was unlawful. She said in her response that the demanded documentation was of ‘potential relevance’ to the inquiry’s ‘lines of investigation’.
But the Government believes it has no duty to disclose ‘unambiguously irrelevant’ material.
The Cabinet Office said it was fully committed to its obligations to the Covid-19 probe. A spokesman added: ‘We will continue to provide all relevant material to the inquiry, in line with the law, ahead of proceedings getting under way.’
Last night former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith accused Lady Hallett of ‘trying to be Agatha Christie’ by turning the inquiry into a ‘whodunnit’ rather than ‘whatdunnit’.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘They are on a fishing expedition, and what they should do is stop fishing. There is enough evidence out there to know what went wrong.’
But former head of the Civil Service Lord Kerslake said there appears to be a ‘cover-up’ as ministers seem set to block the release of unredacted messages to the Covid-19 inquiry.
The Cabinet Office has until 4pm to respond to inquiry chair Lady Hallett’s requests for messages and diaries belonging to Boris Johnson.
Lord Kerslake told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘There’s some cover-up going on here to save embarrassment of ministers. But there’s also the Cabinet Office fighting for a principle of confidentiality.
‘I have to say I think they’re misguided on this situation. I actually think it would set a helpful precedent if Lady Hallett prevailed in this fight about the information.
‘We are in a bit of a mess at the moment, we don’t really know whether WhatsApp’s been used as a decision-making tool or, indeed, as just an information-sharing device.
‘We’ve got the extraordinary situation where Matt Hancock handed over a whole sheath of WhatsApp messages to a journalist without any apparent sanction under the official secrets act, surely this case for seeing the documents in one of our most important inquiries, probably since Iraq, must be much more compelling than that.’
Liberal Democrat health spokeswomen Daisy Cooper said that ‘failing to hand over the evidence in full, as requested by the chair of the Covid inquiry, would make a mockery of this whole process and would be yet another insult to bereaved families still waiting for justice’.
‘It looks like Rishi Sunak is too worried about upsetting Boris Johnson and his allies to do the right thing.
‘The public deserve the whole truth about what went wrong. Vital evidence shouldn’t be kept secret just to spare ministers’ blushes.’
