The Government is preparing to use data protection laws to stop leaks of sensitive information from a haul of WhatsApp messages which will be handed over to the Covid inquiry next week, i understands.
Ministers lost a court case in which they tried to argue they should not have to turn over “irrelevant” material which was requested by the inquiry’s chair, Heather Hallett.
They decided not to lodge an appeal after concluding it would be a waste to time to drag out the dispute any further.
But the Government claimed to be pleased to have secured an agreement that any material which is not needed by Baroness Hallett as part of her inquiry will be returned and not kept.
A spokesman said: “As this judgment acknowledges, our judicial review application was valid as it raised issues over the application of the Inquiries Act 2005 that have now been clarified.
“The court’s judgment is a sensible resolution and will mean that the inquiry chair is able to see the information she may deem relevant, but we can work together to have an arrangement that respects the privacy of individuals and ensures completely irrelevant information is returned and not retained.”
Ministers are concerned that some of the WhatsApp messages could end up being leaked by people from outside the inquiry’s core team who may have access to them and are planning to take legal action against those who misuse the information. “We are going to come down like a ton of bricks on data protection,” a Government source said.
The Cabinet Office has agreed that by next week it will hand over all messages exchanged between Boris Johnson and a long list of advisers and ministers at the height of the pandemic.
Lord Justice Dingemans and Mr Justice Garnham dismissed the attempt to block the request, saying: “To answer the practical issue which seems to have divided the Cabinet Office and the chair of the inquiry, the chair of the inquiry may examine the contested documents, and if the chair of the inquiry agrees that they are obviously irrelevant, will return them.”
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “While the rest of the country battles the cost-of-living crisis, Rishi Sunak has been wasting time and taxpayers’ money on doomed legal battles to withhold evidence from the Covid inquiry. After this latest humiliating defeat, the Prime Minister must accept the ruling and comply with the inquiry’s requests for evidence in full.”
A spokesman for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK added: “This judicial review was a desperate waste of time and money. The inquiry needs to get to the facts if the country is to learn lessons that will save lives in the future. That means it needs to be able to access all of the evidence, not just what the Cabinet Office wants it to see.”
Mr Johnson had said publicly that he was happy for all his messages, and a collection of notebooks he used during the pandemic, to be given to the inquiry in full, in a move widely seen as piling additional pressure on his successor. The mobile phone he used at the start of crisis is currently inaccessible after it was disabled for security reasons.
