Boris Johnson is yet to hand over any WhatsApp messages showing discussions he had during the 2020 Covid lockdowns, the government has said.
The UK Covid Inquiry wants to see messages and notebooks kept by the former prime minister to build a picture of how decisions were taken in government.
But the former PM has only handed over a message archive dating to May 2021 or later, a witness statement published by the Cabinet Office on Thursday and sent to the inquiry says.
Mr Johnson is said to have the messages from before May 2021 on a different phone, which he no longer uses for security reasons.
“In that material [passed to the Cabinet Office], there are no WhatsApp communications before May 2021,” the statement, from the senior civil servant in charge of the government’s inquiry response says.
“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.”
The statement adds: “It is my understanding that Mr Johnson has possession of that device, and that it is a personal device.
“On 31 May the Cabinet Office spoke to Mr Johnson’s legal representatives to ask them to check with Mr Johnson that he has possession of the phone, and to confirm this to the Cabinet Office.
“The Cabinet Office explained that if the phone could be passed to the Government it could be assessed by security experts. On the morning of 1 June, the Cabinet Office emailed to chase for a response.
“We have not yet received a substantive response. As the Cabinet Office is not, I understand, in possession of the phone, any material stored on the phone is not in the Cabinet Office’s possession or control.”
Mr Johnson’s spokesperson on Wednesday said the ex PM was “perfectly happy for the inquiry to have access to this material in whatever form it requires” and had handed over his messages.
The Cabinet Office on Thursday also announced that it would be launching a legal challenge against the inquiry’s request for the messages.
The government says it only wants to give the inquiry redacted versions of the messages and that “unambiguously irrelevant” messages should not be passed over.
But the retired judge who leads the inquiry, Baroness Hallett, says the is for the inquiry to judge what is relevant and that such information could provide useful context – for example if the government was distracted by other matters.
The inquiry chair says that “the entire contents of the specified documents are of potential relevance to the lines of investigation being pursued by the inquiry.”
Mr Johnson was forced to change his mobile in 2021 after it emerged his number had been publicly available online for 15 years.
It also emerged that Mr Johnson initially refused a request by the Cabinet Office to move his notebooks to a “secure location” in April.
The Cabinet Office said it would share some of Mr Johnson’s notebook material within days – but insisted they needed to be redacted to exclude “national security sensitivities and unambiguously irrelevant material”.
The government said the material will be shared with the Covid inquiry in batches as officials did not have enough time to redact them.