Covid inquiry: Government will 'probably lose legal case', says minister

The authorities is apt to suffer its ineligible lawsuit against the Covid inquiry, a authorities curate has said.

It comes aft the authorities said it would question a judicial reappraisal implicit the inquiry's request that it taxable Boris Johnson's unredacted WhatsApp messages.

Speaking connected BBC Question Time, subject curate George Freeman said helium had "very small doubt" a tribunal would find it should manus implicit the documents.

He added it was "worth testing" whether officials had a close to privacy.

On Thursday, the authorities missed a 16:00 BST deadline to taxable messages sent betwixt Mr Johnson and 40 different ministers and officials during the pandemic.

The Cabinet Office - which supports the premier curate successful moving the authorities - has argued galore of the messages are not applicable and that to manus them implicit would compromise ministers' privateness and hamper aboriginal decision-making.

Baroness Hallett, the retired justice and crossbench adjacent who is chairing the inquiry, has said it is up to her to determine what worldly is relevant.

Asked whether helium thought the authorities would triumph the case, Mr Freeman told the BBC helium thought the "courts volition astir apt instrumentality the view" that Lady Hallett is entitled to determine "what grounds she deems relevant".

He added that "people's privateness is truly important" and that the question of however backstage correspondence should beryllium handled was a "point worthy testing".

"I would similar to spot a concern wherever the enquiry says, 'Listen, we volition wholly respect the privateness of thing that's not related to Covid. We volition redact it'," helium said.

The situation is thought to beryllium the archetypal clip a authorities has taken ineligible enactment against its ain nationalist inquiry.

Mr Johnson has said helium has fixed his messages to the Cabinet Office and would beryllium "more than happy" for them to beryllium passed to the enquiry unredacted.

The erstwhile premier curate has not handed implicit immoderate messages from earlier April 2021 - much than a twelvemonth into the pandemic - due to the fact that his telephone was progressive successful a information breach and has not been turned connected since, his spokesperson said.

He has written to the Cabinet Office to inquire whether method enactment tin beryllium fixed truthful the contented tin beryllium retrieved without compromising security, the spokesperson added.

The saga comes conscionable weeks earlier the enquiry - tasked with identifying lessons from however the pandemic was handled - is owed to clasp its archetypal nationalist hearings.

Lobby Akinnola, from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, expressed exasperation astatine the government's determination to bring the situation and said helium feared it was portion of an effort to render the enquiry "lame".

"I'm frustrated, I'm angry," helium told the BBC's The World Tonight, adding that "we're trying to recognize what went incorrect truthful we tin forestall it happening again and that...is what the authorities is hindering."

Elkan Abrahamson, the lawyer representing the group, said the refusal to manus implicit the worldly "raises questions astir the integrity of the enquiry and however unfastened and transparent it volition beryllium if the seat is incapable to spot each of the material".

Opposition parties person besides urged the authorities to comply with the inquiry's requests.

Labour's lawman leader, Angela Rayner, described the ineligible situation arsenic a "desperate effort to withhold evidence" that would service "only to undermine the Covid Inquiry", portion the Liberal Democrats called it a "kick successful the teeth for bereaved families who've already waited acold excessively agelong for answers".