Inquiry hears of Sturgeon regret not locking down sooner

Not locking down "a week, two weeks earlier" at the start of the pandemic is a chief regret, former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry in an emotional evidence session.

Ms Sturgeon became tearful at times while giving evidence in Edinburgh, including when saying a "large part" of her wishes she had not been Scotland's first minister during the pandemic.

She said: "Of the many regrets I have, probably chief of those is that we didn't lock down a week, two weeks, earlier than we did." She denied making pandemic decisions for political reasons, adding she had not "thought less" about politics and Scottish independence in her life than she did during the pandemic. "I was motivated solely by trying to do the best we could to keep people as safe as possible," she added. "We did that to some extent, but not to, and perhaps we never could have done it to the extent I would have wished we could have done. "I carry the regret for the loss of life, the loss of opportunity, the loss of education of our young people, I carry that with me every single day." Earlier, she choked back tears as she said: "I was the first minister when the pandemic struck. "There's a large part of me wishes that I hadn't been, but I was, and I wanted to be the best first minister." Ms Sturgeon added it is "for others to judge" if she succeeded in her aim.

UK minister Michael Gove previously accused the Scottish government of seeking "political conflict" during the pandemic. Ms Sturgeon, fighting back tears, said: "The idea that in those horrendous days, weeks, I was thinking of political opportunity" was "not the case".