Covid inquiry will see all Boris Johnson's documents despite legal fight

ITV News Correspondent Romilly Weeks has the latest, as the Covid inquiry chair Baroness Hallett wades into the Boris Johnson WhatsApp row

By Lewis Denison, ITV News Westminster Producer

The Covid-19 inquiry will get access to the material it has requested of Boris Johnson's, despite a legal battle to keep them private, it has been revealed.

Hugo Keith KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, revealed the former prime minister had already provided many of his WhatsApp messages - aside from those contained on a phone subject to a security breach - and had requested many of his notebooks from government officials.

The phone holding the missing WhatsApps will soon be accessed by security services to gain the messages, the lawyer told the inquiry, and the government will shortly return Mr Johnson his notebooks.

"So the concluding point is," Mr Keith said, "we will shortly gain access to all the material on an unredacted basis".

The inquiry will see the material before a High Court legal battle begins on June 30 or shortly after, aiming to keep private what the governments believes is irrelevant information or personal details.

Inquiry chairwoman Baroness Heather Hallett refused to comment on the situation regarding the former prime minister's documents in her first remarks since the government decided to launch legal action.

The retired senior judge's deadline for the UK government to hand over the former prime minister's WhatsApp messages and notebooks in an unredacted format was missed by the Cabinet Office last week.

The documents requested by the Covid inquiry include conversations between Mr Johnson, Rishi Sunak and other senior figures still in government.

Ministers have defended the highly unusual move to apply for judicial review, citing concerns over material that is "unambiguously irrelevant", despite doubts by some legal experts over whether they are likely to win the case.

Baroness Hallett said she would be making "no further comment" on the Cabinet Office's legal challenge due to "pending" litigation.

Downing Street said the government is "willing to agree another way forward" when asked whether it is committed to going ahead with legal action against the Covid inquiry.

Mr Sunak's official spokesman told journalists: "You heard from the minister that we remain hopeful and willing to agree together the best way forward.

"Obviously we have explored other possibilities for resolution previously. So obviously we continue to speak to the inquiry. And as I say, we are willing to agree another way forward."

While the court case would focus on Mr Johnson's documents, its ruling will be applied to requests for documents from other individuals.

When the legal action was launched, Mr Johnson wrote to the inquiry, telling it he did not want to be used as a test case to prevent the release of other material.

His allies have suggested the government is seeking to protect the disclosure of messages from Mr Sunak and others still in government.

The government was also warned it will delay the Covid-19 inquiry if it does not hurry up with providing all requested materials in an unredacted form.

Mr Keith told the public hearing that many of the documents requested as evidence by the chair had been redacted by the government or lacked detail.

He urged the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office to "supply unredacted material without delay" in order to avoid delays to the inquiry's first substantive hearing on June 13.

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"Given the relatively short period of time before the start of the substantive hearings, delays in that difficult and burdensome process have the potential to disrupt the inquiry's process unless such problems are swiftly resolved," he said.

He told the inquiry he wanted to "emphasise the absolute need on the part of those government departments to comply with final deadlines given the diminishing time before the substantive hearing, adding: "Further requests for extensions are unlikely to be granted."

The lawyer also raised concern about the lack of information provided from communications on Google Spaces.

He said the government took four months to respond to requests and when the information was provided it lacked detail.

Mr Keith said it was “regrettable” that “so much time has elapsed” as he urged the Cabinet Office to provide all material from Google Space.

During Tuesday's preliminary hearing, Lady Hallett is due to focus on Module 2 of the inquiry, which will look into core political and administrative decision making by the UK government.

Preliminary hearings will consider how the investigation should be run rather than taking evidence.

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