Nicola Sturgeon tells Covid Inquiry: 'We did not get everything right'

As she began giving evidence, Ms Sturgeon said the learning from the Covid outbreak is of “critical importance”.

She offered her “sympathies and condolences to all those who suffered as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney to give evidence at Covid-19 inquiry

The SNP MSP said: “The pandemic may be over but for many people their suffering continues and there is not a day that passes that I don’t think about that.”

However, Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish Government did not accept the worst-case scenario of the pandemic.

Nicola Sturgeon arrives at the Inquiry 

She said: “It was our determination from the outset to suppress it to the maximum.”

READ MORE: Families and Unions demand answers from Covid Inquiry

Scotland’s first minister at the time of the pandemic said her government did not “simply accept that there is a level of harm that is going to be done”.

Ms Sturgeon said Scotland did not have a plan for a non-flu pandemic, although there was “thinking” around high consequence infectious diseases which were not flu.

She said: “What there wasn’t, and I think this is the significant gap, is there was no set plan, and as I say that’s not the same as saying there was no thinking, into how we dealt with a pandemic that has the features and characteristics of flu in terms of the transmissibility but also the severity…”

She added: “The questions in my mind, literally every day, are not so much did we lack a plan but did we lack capabilities for dealing with a pandemic of the nature of Covid-19. And obviously I’m talking about there about contact tracing, testing, infrastructure in particular.”

Ms Sturgeon was warned she was in a “witness box, not a soap box”, when talk turned to Brexit. 

The Former First Minister told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry she “deeply regrets” having to divert resources from emergency planning to plan for the possibility of a no deal Brexit.

She said: “We had no choice but to do that planning. I deeply regret any consequences that had for our emergency planning in other areas.”

Questioned if this was a “false economy”, she said: “I think every aspect of Brexit has been a false economy,” which provoked the warning. 

Nicola Sturgeon, during the pandemic 

Her evidence on Thursday was followed by that of her deputy first minister during the pandemic, John Swinney.

Asked why there was “no real financial pandemic planning put in place for support or counter-measures”, Mr Swinney said the terms of the devolution settlement do not allow a reserve to be built up.

“The Scottish Government is specifically prevented from building up a reserve that it can deploy for eventualities of this type,” he said.

He said the UK Government’s economic intervention during the pandemic was “very welcome” and “saved many people’s livelihoods from great jeopardy”, but also demonstrated the scale of the financial challenge created by the pandemic.

Earlier, Sir Jeremy Farrar, a former member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), which advised the UK Government during the pandemic, gave evidence.

He said having a so-called “red team” to constructively challenge scientific thinking “from the outside”, could add a different perspective to a pandemic response in the future.

He said this system worked well when he was part of a similar enterprise in the US.

Former Wellcome director Sir Jeremy said that Independent Sage – set up by former chief scientific adviser to the UK Government, Sir David King – tried to work like a red team “but unfortunately, for reasons others can debate, sometimes it became more confrontational than perhaps was constructive”.

Ms Sturgeon’s evidence will be followed by that of former deputy first minister John Swinney.

On Wednesday, senior Scottish Government officials began giving evidence to the inquiry.

Scotland, like other countries throughout the world, was dealing with a virus which was unknown and new

Former Scotland health secretary Jeane Freeman said that, while Scotland could have better handled the pandemic, there was ultimately “no plan” that could have helped the country cope with Covid.

“There were certainly areas where Scotland could have been better prepared in terms of the underlying structure and delivery of all those recommendations,” she said.

“But Scotland, like other countries throughout the world, was dealing with a virus which was unknown and new.

“So, in that sense, I don’t believe there is a plan that would have been possible that would have been able, in and of itself, to cope with Covid-19.”