An extraordinary row over Boris Johnson’s WhatsApps risked descending into farce as the former prime minister said he was happy for his messages to be given to the Covid inquiry – only for the government to say it did not have them.
Downing Street was forced to deny allegations of a cover-up as it stuck by its stance that it should not be forced to release “irrelevant” material concerning the private lives of government staff.
The head of the inquiry has already threatened possible criminal sanctions if the Cabinet Office fails to disclose Mr Johnson’s diary entries and WhatsApp messages.
Officials have now told the inquiry they do not have all the documents demanded. It came as Mr Johnson’s spokesman insisted he had “no objection” to handing over the evidence and that the “decision to challenge the inquiry’s position on redactions is for the Cabinet Office”.
The chair of the inquiry, Baroness Hallett, has now demanded a witness statement from a senior civil servant – accompanied by a statement of truth confirming the documents are not held – if the government fails to produce them by 4pm on Thursday.
Allies of the former prime minister are also reported to have said he gave access to the material to his lawyers, who were paid for by the Cabinet Office.
Mr Sunak said his government was acting “in a spirit of transparency and candour” amid the row. But he came under increasing pressure from senior Tories to find a way to end the dispute.
Former Business Secretary Sir John Redwood told GB news: “There has to be an agreement. The public will want reassurance that the inquiry can have all relevant information. And the Cabinet Office and the ministers and senior officials involved will obviously want to make sure that details of their private lives or comments that aren’t really relevant to the inquiry are protected from wider public view. “
Lord Heseltine told The Independent it was a “complex situation” and said the demand could “create the most incredible straitjacket on ministerial behaviour, if they [ministers] have to account in public for everything they do in private”.
“There is a balance somewhere in here, which is difficult to define, but I want to protect the ability of ministers to behave in a natural way,” he added.
Former Justice Secretary David Gauke said there “may be scope for a compromise”.
Tensions between Mr Sunak and Mr Johnson erupted again last week after officials reported the former prime minister to police over fresh claims he broke lockdown rules by hosting gatherings at his grace-and-favour home, Chequers.
A phone call between the two men this week has been cancelled. As the Whatsapp row intensified, the former head of the civil service accused the government of a “cover-up”.
Lord Kerslake said: “There is some cover-up going on here to save [the] embarrassment of ministers.”
While protecting ministerial confidentiality was important it would be “helpful” if the inquiry “prevailed in this fight”, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Labour said the evidence appeared to have “gone missing” and must be found and presented to the Covid-19 inquiry to avoid the “whiff of a cover-up”.
The prime minister’s official spokesman denied the allegation of a cover-up, saying: “No. We want to learn the lessons about the actions of the state during the pandemic, we want that to be done rigorously and candidly.”
He said there was no requirement for the government to “permanently store or record every WhatsApp”. Messages related to decision-making are copied over to an official record.
He added it was “down to individuals to decide what personal information they are able to hand over”.
A spokesman for the former prime minister said: “Mr Johnson has no objection to disclosing material to the inquiry. He has done so and will continue to do so. The decision to challenge the inquiry’s position on redactions is for the Cabinet Office.”
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said it was committed to its obligations to the Covid-19 inquiry and had already provided more than 55,000 documents, 24 personal witness statements, eight corporate statements “and extensive time and effort has gone into assisting the inquiry fulsomely over the last 11 months”.
“However, we are firmly of the view that the Inquiry does not have the power to request unambiguously irrelevant information that is beyond the scope of this investigation. This includes the WhatsApp messages of government employees’ which are not about work but instead are entirely personal and relate to their private lives.”