Ken Thomson, the

man who drafted the Scottish Government’s records management policy, was advising people on how to avoid complying with it. The national clinical director, Jason Leitch, who helped shape the Covid regulations, was advising the current First Minister on how to avoid the rules. Nicola Sturgeon, who promised transparency, has, alongside John Swinney and senior civil servants, deleted WhatsApp messages on an industrial scale. There were no lessons learned there, Deputy First Minister.

Whether messages were deleted nightly or weekly, it is clear that Jason Leitch wiped his messages completely and seemed to find the period during the pandemic all quite funny, judging from the messages that we have seen. That is not just a matter for the inquiry—it is a matter for the Scottish Government, too. If the Scottish Government agrees that Jason Leitch’s behaviour was inappropriate, is it not time that he was sacked?