Rishi Sunak is facing a growing row over the Government’s legal battle to withhold some unredacted documents from the Covid Inquiry which even a minister admitted was likely to fail.
The Prime Minister was warned by Theresa May’s former chief-of-staff Lord Barwell that the Government was making a “bad mistake” in seeking a judicial review in the clash with the inquiry.
The Cabinet Office launched the move in response to inquiry chairwoman Baroness Hallett’s demand for a swathe of unredacted communications including Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and diaries, as well as information from other ministers and senior officials.
But barrister Michael Mansfield KC, who was involved in the Stephen Lawrence and Hillsborough inquiries, said the Government would not “get away with it” and would be forced to hand over the documents.
Mr Johnson piled further pressure on Mr Sunak in the legal bust-up by saying he was directly sending the inquiry unredacted WhatsApp messages.
The ex-PM stressed he was not willing to “let my material become a test case for others when I am perfectly content for the inquiry to see it”.
He also insisted he was willing to hand over “all unredacted WhatsApp” messages, including material from a previous phone discarded due to security reasons. However, whether this happens appeared to depend on whether it could be reactivated without compromising security.
Meanwhile, Science minister George Freeman defended the legal move but also said he believed it was “quite likely” that the High Court would back Baroness Hallett, a former Court of Appeal judge.
Bereaved families and opposition parties condemned the Government after the Cabinet Office took the highly unusual step of seeking a judicial review against a public inquiry.
The Cabinet Office argues it should not have to hand over material deemed “unambiguously irrelevant” to the inquiry by Government-appointed senior lawyers. But Baroness Hallett says such decisions are for her inquiry team.
It also emerged that the WhatsApp messages passed by Mr Johnson to the Cabinet Office were only from May 2021 onwards, rather than from the start of the pandemic when the Government was accused of being too slow to respond. Mr Johnson was forced to change his mobile in 2021 after it emerged his number had been publicly available online for 15 years.
A bundle of legal documents released also included a list of 150 questions sent to Mr Johnson by the inquiry. They include:
In or around autumn 2020, did you state that you would rather “let the bodies pile high” than order another lockdown, or words to that effect?
Please confirm whether in March 2020 (or around that period), you suggested to senior civil servants and advisers that you be injected with Covid-19 on television to demonstrate to the public that it did not pose a threat?
Notwithstanding that the DHSC (health) was the lead government department, why did you not attend any Cobra meetings in relation to Covid-19 prior to March 2, 2020, given the seriousness of the emergency?
Labour has accused the Government of a “cover-up” by refusing to hand over the unredacted documents.
Mr Freeman, on BBC Question Time last night, predicted the legal challenge would likely fail but argued that it was a “point worth testing”.
But Lord Barwell told BBC radio: “If we can’t see how the Government made the decisions... then people are not going to have confidence in the outcome of the inquiry.”
Mr Mansfield told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “The scope of the inquiry is determined by the chair. They (the Government) are not going to be able to get away with it.”
Elkan Abrahamson, head of major inquests and inquiries at Broudie Jackson Canter, who represents the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, accused the Cabinet Office of “showing utter disregard for the inquiry”.
