Boris Johnson – latest: Sunak’s bid to keep WhatsApps secret is likely to fail, minister admits

The government will likely lose its legal challenge against the Covid inquiry, a minister has predicted.

Science minister George Freeman, appearing on BBC Question Time, insisted the decision to launch judicial review proceedings was not a “cynical waste of time” but admitted he thought the prospect of success unlikely.

“Wasting time” is not what those worst affected by the Covid pandemic want to see from the government, the former justice secretary has said as he weighed in on the row over Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages to the official inquiry into minister’s handling of the pandemic.

Sir Robert Buckland KC, the MP for Swindon South who held the justice brief under Mr Johnson, said Baroness Hallett, the former appeal court judge in charge of the inquiry, “has the power” to decide what is relevant, making the Cabinet Office’s legal bid “a fool’s errand”.

“This is wasting time…this is not what the victims and those who are really affected by the events of Covid crisis will want to see,” he told LBC radio. Listen to more of Mr Buckland’s interview below:

Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s live politics coverage.

We’ll be covering the ongoing row over Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages to the Covid inquiry, the suspension of a Labour MP accused of sexual harassment and the latest round of train strikes.

Stay tuned for updates on these and other stories from Westminster and elsewhere.

Our live coverage of the row over handing Boris Johnson’s Covid files to the inquiry is on hold for now. We will bring you further updates as soon as possible.

Labour former justice secretary Lord Falconer predicted the courts would reject the government’s “hopeless” challenge.

It was unarguably for the inquiry, not the Cabinet Office to decide the relevance of documents, he said.

Green MP Caroline Lucas said it was unforgivable of Mr Sunak to disrupt the inquiry this way, adding: “A huge insult to bereaved, NHS and care staff and us all.”

Lord Saville, who conducted the inquiry into Bloody Sunday, suggested that if he were in Baroness Hallett’s position, he might consider quitting.

“Trying to put myself in her position, if I was prevented from conducting a full and proper inquiry, I might seriously consider resigning on the grounds that I was unable to do a proper job,” he told Channel 4 News.

“It is a course that could be open her if she felt her efforts to carry out a thorough inquiry were being frustrated.”

The former prime minister, who was in No 10 during the coronavirus pandemic, asks the Baroness Hallett to let him know where and how she wishes him to send his WhatsApp messages and notebooks:

A government minister has predicted the Cabinet Office will lose its legal fight with the Covid-19 inquiry after officials launched judicial review proceedings.

Science minister George Freeman said he expected the courts to side with Baroness Hallett, but that he did not think it was a “cynical” exercise and it was a “point worth testing”.

Mr Freeman told BBC Question Time: “I completely agree that in the end, this is a judicial decision. It’ll be taken by the courts. I happen to think the courts will probably take the view that Baroness Hallett, who’s running the inquiry, is perfectly entitled and empowered to decide whatever she wants.

“I don’t think it is a cynical waste of time at all. The privacy point is relevant. I think it’ll clear up and give people confidence, even if all this achieves is to make very clear that the inquiry will treat with absolute confidentiality anything private and we can get on with it.”

In a letter to the inquiry, released after a 4pm deadline to hand over the material, the Cabinet Office said it had provided “as much relevant information as possible, and as quickly as possible” in line with the order.

A tranche of legal documents and letters published on Thursday evening reveal among other things that the WhatsApp messages passed to Cabinet Office officials are only from May 2021 onwards.

In a statement to the inquiry, senior civil servant Ellie Nicholson said Mr Johnson’s lawyers had not provided a “substantive response” to a request from the department for his old mobile phone.

Ms Nicholson said the Cabinet Office had received Mr Johnson’s WhatsApp messages on Wednesday afternoon and was reviewing the material “for national security sensitivities and unambiguously irrelevant material, and appropriate redactions are being applied”.

She added: “In that material, there are no WhatsApp communications before May 2021. I understand that this is because, in April 2021, in light of a well-publicised security breach, Mr Johnson implemented security advice relating to the mobile phone he had had up until that time.

Mr Johnson was forced to change his mobile in 2021 after it emerged his number had been publicly available online for 15 years.

It is understood that the former prime minister has no objection to providing the material on the phone to the inquiry.

He is believed to have written to the Cabinet Office to ask whether security and technical support can be given to help retrieve the content on the device without compromising security.

The government’s defence of its refusal to hand over the files has prompted warnings that bereaved families could now regard the public inquiry as a “whitewash and cover-up”.

A lawyer who represents the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, said the Cabinet Office was showing utter disregard for the inquiry in “maintaining their belief that they are the higher power and arbiter of what is relevant material and what is not”.

Elkan Abrahamson, head of major inquests and inquiries at Broudie Jackson Canter, said: “It raises questions about the integrity of the inquiry and how open and transparent it will be if the chair is unable to see all of the material.”