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Last night Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said: ‘This news is a slap in the face to those who lost loved ones during the pandemic.‘The SNP should be focused on giving bereaved families answers rather than lining the pockets of those who helped ministers hide the truth from the public.’Messages retrieved by the UK Covid Inquiry revealed that Mr Thomson, formerly the Scottish Government’s director general for strategy and external affairs, was a key player in the deletion row.
In 2020 he told colleagues in a WhatsApp group called Covid Outbreak: ‘Just to remind you (seriously) this is discoverable under FOI [freedom of information]. Know where the “clear chat” button is.’ Mr Thomson added: ‘Plausible deniability are my middle names. Now clear it again!’He also wrote in 2021: ‘I feel moved at this point to remind you that this channel is FOI recoverable.’ He included a zipped mouth emoji in his message.
According to official accounts, Mr Thomson and five other senior civil servants have pension benefits worth more than £1million.
Mr Thomson’s £1.5million pension pot is estimated to give him an annual sum of £65,000-£70,000.
At the Covid Inquiry, Mr Thomson was asked whether the messages showed him encouraging people to delete messages to ‘defeat’ FOI requests. He replied: ‘No.’
The Scottish Government said pay and pensions for senior civil servants ‘is reserved to the UK Government’.
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