NICOLA Sturgeon has confirmed who will take charge of the Scottish Government during the coronavirus crisis if she becomes incapcitated.

Answering questions from journalists at her daily briefing, the First Minister declined to go into specifics around contingency planning but said mechanisms were in place if she needed to step away.

Last night, after Boris Johnson was admitted to intensive care, Dominic Raab, the First Secretary of State, effectively became the caretaker Prime Miniser.

But there have been questions over what power he actually has and what this means for important decisions that may need to be made while the Tory leader is in hospital. 

Sturgeon told reporters she would “work for as long as was medically appropriate”.

“Clearly everybody has to make judgments about their own capacity to work. I want to lead in this operation as effectively, and as much on an ongoing basis as possible, but I would make judgments... about when it’s appropriate in the interests of the response to the coronavirus for me to hand that to somebody else for a period time."

And said she hoped the situation wouldn’t arise and that she was “taking as many precautions as I reasonably can given at what I have to do for work related purposes”.

It would, she added, be her deputy, Education Secretary, John Swinney, who would take over if she needed to take time off work.

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