Nicola Sturgeon rebuked for using Covid inquiry to criticise Brexit: ‘It’s a witness box not a soap box’

Ex-SNP leader told off for saying: ‘Every aspect of Brexit has been a false economy’

Nicola Sturgeon was told off at the Covid inquiry for getting on her “soap box” and criticising the impact of Brexit.

Scotland’s former first minister condemned the threatened Tory no-deal Brexit of 2019, arguing that it damaged the UK’s ability to prepare for health emergencies.

Appearing at the public inquiry on Thursday morning, the ex-SNP leader went on to say: “Every aspect of Brexit has been a false economy.”

Inquiry lawyer Hugo Keith KC rebuked Ms Sturgeon for straying into politics, telling her: “That is a witness box, not a soap box.”

Ms Sturgeon said there had been a need to “divert resources” from emergency planning on potential pandemics because Boris Johnson, then prime minister, had threatened to crash the UK out of the EU without an exit deal.

She said Scottish government ministers “were not at all happy”, but had “no choice” but to switch focus to prepare for the “grim” warnings in the UK government’s Operation Yellowhammer report – including major supply chain disruption.

“It was a matter of deep regret and frustration for us at the time,” 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”, the senior SNP figure said: “I think every aspect of Brexit has been a false economy” – before being chastised by the inquiry lawyer.

Ms Sturgeon, under intense pressure in recent weeks over a police investigation into SNP finances, also told the Covid inquiry that the Scottish government she led during the Covid crisis did not accept the worst-case scenario of the pandemic.

The former first minister said: “It was our determination from the outset to suppress it to the maximum.”

Boris Johnson had threatened a no-deal Brexit in 2019 (AP)

It followed an astonishing attack on Whitehall thinking by former health secretary Matt Hancock at the Covid inquiry earlier this week – claiming officials were more concerned with counting “bodybags” than preventing the spread of the virus.

Mr Hancock admitted he had signed off on resources being reallocated away from his own department to support emergency planning for the threatened no-deal Brexit – saying he “wasn’t enthusiastic about it”.

But he said no-deal Brexit planning had helped the government plan for the movement of medicines when Covid arrived, saying Britain had come “within hours” of running out at the height of the crisis.

Nicola Sturgeon arrives at Covid inquiry hearing (PA)

Meanwhile, Ms Sturgeon admitted that Scotland had no specific plan for a non-flu pandemic before Covid struck. The former first minister said there was some “thinking” around high-consequence infectious diseases which were not flu.

She told the Covid inquiry the government she led during the pandemic “did our best... but did not get everything right”.

The former SNP leader added: “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.”

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

Earlier, Sir Jeremy Farrar, a former member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said the creation of a so-called “red team” to constructively challenge scientific thinking “from the outside” could add a different perspective to a future pandemic response.

Sir Jeremy said that Independent Sage tried to work like a red team “but unfortunately, for reasons others can debate, sometimes it became more confrontational than perhaps was constructive”.