Scottish ministers were reluctant to impose a Covid lockdown earlier because they 'did not trust' the UK Government to fund it, an expert in public policy has said.

Giving evidence to the UK Covid inquiry in Edinburgh, Professor Paul Cairney said that devolved powers meant that the Scottish Government could have passed legislation to enforce a stay-at-home order prior to March 23 2020, but that the obstacle to acting sooner was financial.

The UK "provides the budget and the Scotland decides how to spend it", he said.

Prof Cairney, an expert in politics and public policy, said: "The Scottish Government's position is that an act such as lockdown would be profoundly expensive and that's been borne out, and it did not have the means to borrow that money to finance that activity.

"It had a budget, but that budget was already allocated...it didn't feel financially able to fund its own furlough."

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Prof Cairney added that Scottish ministers had also wrestled with a dilemma of "would people accept it" if Scotland imposed its own lockdown prior to the rest of the UK, and noted that there was a risk that the UK Government could have challenged the legislation as it has done with gender identity law.

In a crisis such as the pandemic "it makes sense for the UK Government to legislate because then it [Scottish Government] can't receive that challenge in terms of competence", said Prof Cairney.

Jamie Dawson KC, lead counsel for the inquiry in Scotland, questioned whether the Scottish Government could have negotiated "flexible" funding to impose its own lockdowns.

Prof Cairney said: "If you had a situation before 2020 when the two governments were working really well together, they knew each other, and trusted each other, if the Prime Minister said 'we will provide the funding in a flexible manner', Scottish Government would have been assured and would have acted accordingly.

"The problem here is that...Scottish Government ministers did not trust UK Government ministers and would not take a verbal assurance as something they could plan on.

"That lack of trust, communication and cooperation would undermine the delivery of that kind of flexibility."

The Herald: The Scottish Government passed legislation to enforce lockdown only after it was announced by the UK Government for EnglandThe Scottish Government passed legislation to enforce lockdown only after it was announced by the UK Government for England (Image: Getty)

Mr Dawson noted that Wales had imposed its own firebreak-style lockdown earlier than England to control the second Covid wave in late 2020, suggesting that other devolved nations had felt able to act.

In later evidence, Prof Cairney acknowledged that polling indicated that the Scottish Government scored consistently higher than the UK Government in terms of public confidence "that the government was acting in people's best interests".

However, he said that public satisfaction and trust were "a weak proxy of how things are going because people may put their trust in governments without any evidence to give them the reason to do it", such as favouring the ruling party.

It did not provide an accurate insight into whether people were actually complying with, or understood what, was being asked of them, said Prof Cairney.

He added that the Scottish Government's FACTS public health messaging was an example where few people could remember what the letters stood for.

He said: "It's striking that a minister giving evidence to a committee was given a round of applause for recounting these five.

"To me, that sums up the issue."

The inquiry was shown a report compiled by Prof Cairney in which he described how a the "temporarily high concentration of power in central government" during a crisis such as the pandemic tends to foster a "Presidential-style" of policymaking and communication where the primary aim is "to maintain the popularity of (or at least trust in) elected leaders".

"Was a Presidential style of leadership a feature of the Scottish Government's communications strategy?" asked Mr Dawson.

"Yes," said Mr Cairney.

The Herald: 'Presidential': Prof Cairney said the crisis led the Scottish Government to adopt a 'presidential' style of communication'Presidential': Prof Cairney said the crisis led the Scottish Government to adopt a 'presidential' style of communication (Image: PA)

The professor also questioned the Scottish Government's position that it learned lessons during the pandemic and would be better able to respond to another in future. 

He said the government "appear[s] to have made the exact same mistakes twice" and had not learned lessons from the first lockdown. 

"There is a rhetoric of learning that does not match reality," he said.

Prof Cairney concluded: "The Scottish Government produces beautiful strategy documents. It has a wonderful language to describe how it wants to be.

"It does not have the same effective language for describing how it is."