Thank you. That concludes general questions. The next item of business is First Minister's

questions. At question number one, I call Douglas Ross.

Thank you, Mr President. In June 2021, the Scottish Government were told to retain

messages relevant to their handling of the COVID pandemic. But five months later, the SMP introduced a policy to destroy WhatsApp messages.

This is the digital equivalent of building a bonfire to torch the evidence.

So, First Minister, why did the SMP bring in a policy to delete messages after they have been told to keep

them?

First of all, of course, the policy being referred to by Douglas Ross is a general policy

around messaging, mobile messaging, including informal messaging, such as WhatsApp.

Of course, what is key when we got the advisory notice is particularly from the Scottish inquiry and

then when we received information from the UK Government in relation to the UK inquiry,

it was made very clear to officials, to civil servants, to ministers, to cabinet secretaries, that any information

that was relevant or could be potentially relevant to the inquiries should be retained

and, of course, appropriately recorded within our record management system.

That is why 14,000 WhatsApp messages are in the process of being handed over, now that we

have the Section 21 order.

It is why 19,000 documents have already been submitted.

It is why, when I submit my final statement, it will have unredacted WhatsApp messages handed

over to the inquiry.

I should say, that is in very stark contrast to the Prime Minister who tried to take the public

inquiry to court, lost, of course, in the courts, and is still refusing to hand over his

WhatsApp messages.

...