Michael Gove denies COVID surveys used for Union research

Michael Gove has denied that the UK Government used publicly funded COVID-19 surveys for political research.

The UK minister insisted the poll, conducted by market research agency Public First, had instead sought to ensure both governments were communicating public health messages effectively.

It was revealed Public First had been instructed to ask questions about attitudes towards the Union in a recent court case which found the UK Government had acted unlawfully when it awarded the £560,000 contract to the agency.

But Gove said the government had not used public funds to “indulge in party political polling” and instead had focused on how to deal with the pandemic across the UK.

He said: “Our concentration has been on making sure that we can get an effective public health message across and that was the aim behind the investment.”

He added: “The UK Government were concentrating on making sure that we could make the best possible case across the United Kingdom on how we could deal with the COVID pandemic.”

The SNP has previously called for a public inquiry into the alleged misuse of public funds over the poll.

The party’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford said: “Despite the government's best attempts to play this down, the reality is that this scandal will not disappear. There are very serious questions for the Prime Minister and Cabinet Office minister to answer over how they siphoned off public money for their own political purposes.”

He added: “If the Tory government genuinely believes it has nothing to hide or that it has done nothing wrong, then the Cabinet Office minister will set the record straight and the Prime Minister will commit to a full public inquiry.”

Asked about the prospect of an inquiry, Gove said the broader one next year would cover a range of issues to ensure that lessons were learned from this pandemic going forward.

He said: “A number of allegations have been made about contracts that have turned out to be either ideologically motivated or unfounded.

“I think there’s a widespread recognition, including in the recent court case, that the government was entitled – and not just the UK Government, other governments, the Welsh Government, Scottish Government – were entitled in a crisis situation to move quickly in order to save lives.

“Of course there will be a lessons learned exercise because faced with a once in a generation pandemic, all governments made errors and mistakes, but those errors and mistakes were made in good faith by people who were doing their very best to help those on the frontline.”

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was speaking from Aberdeen, where had had been visited the £40m BioHub supported by the Aberdeen City Region Deal.

Asked about the future of the oil and gas industry in the area and the prospect of a deal between the Scottish Government and the Greens, Gove said he hoped a deal would not be struck.

He said: “The Greens are anti-oil and gas, anti-growth, anti-jobs, anti-investment, anti-North East, anti-Aberdeen, so I hope that the SNP keep them at arm’s length because I do not believe a formal SNP-Green compact would be good for the North East or good for jobs.”