Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf has defended his predecessor’s handling of Covid, saying despite “smears and insults” from opponents he is “very pleased” Nicola Sturgeon had been in charge during the “darkest days” of the pandemic.

He was speaking as Ms Sturgeon came under fire again for deleting her WhatsApp messages from the time of the virus.

Ms Sturgeon confirmed to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry on Wednesday she had deleted her messages, insisting the move was in line with Scottish Government policy and that key information from them had been retained on the official record.

With other key figures in the Scottish Government’s Covid response, including then deputy first minister John Swinney and national clinical director Professor Jason Leitch, also having confirmed to the inquiry they deleted their messages, Conservative leader Douglas Ross challenged Mr Yousaf on the issue at Holyrood.

During First Minister’s Questions on Thursday, Mr Ross claimed “deleted WhatsApp messages were covering up major decisions from this SNP Government”, as he said Ms Sturgeon had “destroyed evidence on an industrial scale”.

He went on to claim the Scottish Government had considered the issue of independence when making “key decisions” during the pandemic and “did things for purely political reasons”.

Mr Yousaf accepted “wholeheartedly” that the Government’s policy on the retention of informal messages “clearly could have and should have been better” – adding this is why he has commissioned an external review into the matter.

But he defended his predecessor’s handling of the pandemic – despite Ms Sturgeon saying she will have regrets over decisions she made “for as long as I live”.

Mr Yousaf told MSPs: “When it comes to steering this country through some of its darkest days, I am very pleased we had Nicola Sturgeon in charge here of the Scottish Government as opposed to Boris Johnson.

“On the big calls, many of the decisions we made helped to save lives.”

He accepted there may have been times when Scottish ministers “could have perhaps moved quicker, or moved earlier, or done thing differently”, but he insisted politicians and officials had been working to “protect the people of Scotland”.

Mr Yousaf said: “Our political opponents may well try to rewrite history and engage in smears and insults.

“I can stand up here and say I know that every single day of that pandemic, Nicola Sturgeon, the rest of us in the Scottish Government, civil service included, worked for one reason and one reason only – to protect the people of Scotland from the harms of Covid.”

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar however insisted senior ministers, including Ms Sturgeon, had “subverted” the inquiry by deleting messages.

He said: “They plotted how to maximise their own political advantage while thousands of Scots fought for their lives.

“It is a betrayal to the trust the people of Scotland put into this SNP Government.

“Nicola Sturgeon didn’t tell the truth to the public and Humza Yousaf seems to have misled this Parliament in an attempt to defend her.”

Mr Sarwar insisted that “trust in this SNP Government” has “disappeared”.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton challenged Mr Yousaf on the failure to minute the pandemic “gold command” meetings, which involved Ms Sturgeon and other senior figures from the Scottish Government.

Mr Cole-Hamilton said this was a “secret central committee” which was “in charge, it seems, of everything” during the pandemic.

He demanded the First Minister launches a ministerial code investigation into the lack of gold command record-keeping.

Mr Yousaf however told him the Government will hand over to the inquiry “any notes we have on gold command minutes and meetings”.