SCOTLAND’S chief medical officer told colleagues to delete WhatsApp messages “at the end of every day” during the pandemic, the Covid inquiry heard today.

Professor Sir Gregor Smith has added to a growing political storm around the retention of informal messages by senior decision-makers and their advisers during the handling of Covid-19.

In a group chat in July 2021, deputy chief medical officer Professor Graham Ellis said: “Hope this isn’t FOI-able?”— referring to freedom of information — to which Sir Gregor replied: “Delete at the end of every day.”

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon and her deputy John Swinney did not retain messages, while national clinical director Professor Jason Leitch said deleting messages was a “bedtime ritual.”

Asked about the comments by counsel to the inquiry Jamie Dawson KC, Sir Gregor said: “Scottish government advice at this time was not to retain information for longer than it was necessary: it was to make sure that information that was pertinent, any information — particularly discussions which ended up in a decision — was captured within the corporate systems.”

Sir Gregor said he deleted messages every day or, failing that, “then certainly on a frequent basis, I deleted information which was no longer needed to be kept.”

The inquiry was told by Mr Dawson that messages held by Mr Sturgeon and Mr Swinney had been deleted, while logs from the national clinical director showed he said he regularly deleted messages.

Ms Sturgeon, however, said messages from her had been submitted to the inquiry by other people.