- By Joshua Nevett
- BBC policy
Jun 1, 2023 at 5:20pm BST
Updated 2 minutes ago
Image source: Getty Images
The government will launch an unprecedented legal challenge to the Covid investigation’s claim for WhatsApp messages and documents.
Officials missed a 4pm deadline for disclosing messages between Boris Johnson and his advisers during the pandemic, as well as his diaries and notebooks.
The government refused to disclose some of the material, saying it was not relevant to the work of the investigation.
But the head of the inquiry says it should be her job to decide what’s relevant.
The chair of the inquiry, Baroness Hallett, a colleague at Crossbench, says she needs to see the news to see if it’s relevant to the inquiry’s probe into how the government has been handling the pandemic.
But the government says handing over the requested material would set a precedent that could prevent ministers from discussing policy issues in the future.
The Cabinet Office, which runs the government, has said it will seek a judicial review. That means a judge will decide whether the investigation exceeded his statutory powers to require evidence.
It is believed to be the first time a government has taken legal action against an investigation it launched.
Opposition parties have accused Rishi Sunak’s government of trying to obstruct the Covid investigation and urged him to comply with their demands.
Labor Deputy Leader Angela Rayner said: “These latest smoke-and-mirror tactics only serve to undermine the Covid inquiry.”
The Liberal Democrats said the legal challenge was “a kick in the teeth for grieving families who have already waited far too long for answers”.
Some senior Conservative MPs had urged the government to back down to avoid a protracted legal battle over the Covid probe.
It states that among the “irrelevant materials” requested as part of the investigation, “references to personal and family information, including medical and disciplinary matters” and “comments of a personal nature about identified or identifiable individuals unrelated to Covid-19 “ belonged.
The legal challenge comes a day after Mr Johnson claimed he had turned over all the WhatsApp messages and notebooks requested as part of the Covid inquiry to the Cabinet Office.
He urged the Cabinet Office to submit the inquiry’s material in its entirety and without redacting, adding that he would do so himself “if asked to do so”.
The investigation had sought access to WhatsApp messages from Mr Johnson’s phone for the period January 1, 2020 to February 24, 2022.
However, the material submitted by Mr Johnson did not include any messages sent prior to May 2021.
This is because he was forced to switch phones after a security breach, the cabinet office director said in a statement to the inquiry.