Returning to the subject of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, Alister Jack says he was "keen" that it was UK-wide and available to businesses in Scotland.

Jack says he would have expected Scottish officials to be speaking to UK government officials about the implementation and is "surprised" to hear that this was not the case.

The UK minister is asked if it was reasonable for Scotland to go its own way on personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic.

"I wanted it to be equitable, the distribution of PPE across the United Kingdom," replies Jack.

He explains PPE prices were spiking and he wanted the Treasury to be responsible for the purchase of PPE so that it was fairly distributed.

Jack adds he didn't want the Scottish government to have to spend money that he would rather have been spent on other things.

Claire Mitchell KC recalls evidence given by former deputy first minister John Swinney to the inquiry and asks if Jack was involved in trying to standardise data across the UK.

Jack says his office was very involved in trying to achieve this - to get all nations on the same data set going forward.

He says there was "resistance" from the Scottish government and the data "wasn't comparing apples with apples" - ultimately he had to accept this was a devolved issue.

Jack is being asked about the 10 principles the Scottish government outlined in June 2020 that they thought UK should follow to support the economy and public finances.

Asked if he consulted on or sought to implement any of the principles, Jack replies, "No", adding that he did not want to "interfere".

Jack says the UK chancellor had his own plans and it was for the Scottish government to decide to follow guidance or not.

Claire Mitchell KC for the Scottish Covid Bereaved group is addressing the UK minister, asking to know when Jack cleared his messages.

The Scottish secretary says it was on 15 November 2021, adding: "If I could turn the clock back, knowing what I know now, I would have sought a different solution to the lack of storage capacity.

"I regret that I deleted my entire account.

"I deleted absolutely everything."

We're on to Covid travel restrictions now. Alister Jack is asked whether his position is that the Scottish government did not have the right to close the border between Scotland and England during the pandemic.

He says he feels the "whole border thing" was a ploy to portray Scotland as "a separate country, a land apart".

He explains that he kept pushing back in discussions that the border was not a physical one, but that the Scottish government made their position clear and "relations were strained".

He adds: "They thought it would play well with their audience... whoever that might be."

Alister Jack is being asked if any salient points from his phone conversations were recorded officially.

Jack says conversations he had with officials including UK minister Michael Gove, the chancellor or the prime minister would be "fed in" to his private office and "reflected in advice minutes".

"I'm a delegator. I operated at all times with my office fully in the picture."

The inquiry turns to informal messaging within government. Alister Jack says he used WhatsApp for communicating with UK colleagues.

He says he deleted all his WhatsApp messages to free up storage capacity on his phone in 2021.

"I just deleted all my WhatsApps."

He adds he did not do government by WhatsApp, and deleted everything including messages from his wife and family.

Alister Jack tells the inquiry he was involved in discussions with the chancellor about the furlough scheme, and whether payments would be made available to Scotland if it needed further lockdowns.

Under the scheme, the UK government subsidised the wages of employees hit by the pandemic.

Jamie Dawson KC probes Jack on why a guarantee was not given to the Scottish government that if there were to be another lockdown there, furlough would continue to be paid.

Jack explains that furlough was to run for six months, ending in October. There was then further deliberation on extending it, for how long and by how much.

The minister says he feels there was "a bit of a manufactured grievance" by the Scottish government over the question of a guarantee.

He adds: "We were never going to say 'you're in lockdown, we're cancelling furlough'. That wasn't how the chancellor behaved and our prime minister behaved, and it certainly wasn't how I was going to behave."

"I watched that yesterday... I didn't believe it for a minute," Jack said earlier this morning. "She [Nicola Sturgeon] could cry from one eye if she wanted to."

Alister Jack cannot recall whether he told anyone in the Scottish government about the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which launched in the post-lockdown summer of 2020.

The scheme, devised by then chancellor Rishi Sunak, aimed to boost the hospitality sector by offering diners a discount in cafes and restaurants.

Former scottish finance secretary Kate Forbes has told the inquiry she was not told about the scheme or consulted on it.

Jamie Dawson KC puts to Jack that the Eat Out to Help Out scheme was imposed on Scotland and was contrary to Scottish government guidance.

But the minister insists Scotland didn't have to introduce the scheme and didn't say they didn't want it.

They could have stopped it, he insists, the Scottish government "wasn't bounced into it".

Jamie Dawson KC continues to ask the UK minister about the relationship between the Scottish and UK governments during the pandemic.

Alister Jack says the health secretaries across the United Kingdom met every week - sometimes more - as did the chief medical officers (CMO) and chief scietific advisors (CSA).

The Covid operations group met weekly, as did it's predecessor, the ministerial implementation group. He also points out that a weekly meeting took place with the first ministers of the devolved administrations for an hour.

Jack says: "The idea that we weren't communicating with them is just... ridiculous."

The inquiry turns its focus to the scathing commments from former deputy first minister John Swinney that Alister Jack would contribute nothing to intergovernmental meetings.

The Scottish secretary unsurprisingly does not agree with those comments, saying: "The former first minister and former deputy first minister - I'm not on their Christmas card list."

"They are not my fans," he says, insisting he put in a lot of work into meetings.

Jack says that while the devolution settlement was respected, "we felt it was, at times, quite frustrating".

He explains that differences in the structure of the regulations caused confusion for certain people.

He gives the example of those who, like him, live in Dumfries and Galloway where people are regularly crossing the border.

He says: "We just felt it would have been better for all if we were all aligned."

Alister Jack has been asked about some of yesterday's testimony from Scotland's former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Sturgeon said on Wednesday - while getting emotional - that she put aside her political convictions in order to prioritise the health and safety of the people of Scotland during the pandemic.

Jack says: "I didn't believe it for a minute."

He adds: "She could cry from one eye if she wanted to."

Alister Jack says some elements of public messaging are "a matter or regret".

"There was a level of mistrust sort of baked into the system" because of the way messaging was handled, says the Scottish secretary.

He accepts there was a problem when then PM Boris Johnson changed the "Stay at Home" message to "Stay Alert" in England.

The secretary of state for Scotland says he would hope "we can plan better" and have a more centralised approach to any response in the future, thereby reducing confusion caused by having different rules on each side of the border.

Jack also stresses he felt "very strongly" that after the Scottish government had been told plans, they would work out how they could do things differently which, he felt, "was a political manoeuvre on their part".

Alister Jack is being asked about the "respective responsibility" of the UK and Scottish governments in outlining Scotland's response to the pandemic.

Asked whether boundaries may have become "blurred", he responds: "Yes."

Jack adds it was inevitable that would happen, saying: "The virus knew no boundaries within the UK". There is "a geographical border not a physical border" between the two nations.

He stresses he worked to make sure there was an aligned response "wherever possible" - but accepts they could have been "better prepared" for the pandemic.

Jamie Dawson KC, counsel to the inquiry, refers to Alister Jack's witness statement and quickly runs through his CV.

The secretary of state for Scotland begins by expressing his sadness for those that lost their lives during the pandemic, and offers his condolences to those who've lost loved ones.

Asked to explain his own position, Jack says: "The Scotland office's role is to be the defender, if you like, the safeguarder of devolution, and it's also the Scotland Office's role to work across Whitehall. The lines of devolution are sometimes blurred."

He says his job is always to press the case to get the best deal for Scotland and to make sure the Scottish Parliament doesn't cut across the devolution settlement and UK law.

Angus Cochrane
BBC Scotland News

Alister Jack’s role in the pandemic has already been discussed at this week’s evidence sessions in Edinburgh.

Former deputy first minister John Swinney told the inquiry Jack, unlike his predecessor as Scottish secretary David Mundell, was not a “help” to the Scottish government.

Swinney said there was “no real value” in engaging Jack about decision making during the pandemic.

The ex-SNP minister told the inquiry: "If the Scottish government had a problem with the UK government, the best way to solve it was to go to directly to the person in the UK government to help resolve these issues.

"In my experience the secretary of state for Scotland would have contributed nothing of useful value in assisting us in that process."