By Ben kerrigan-
Boris Johnson has announced the launch of the Covid public inquiry and finalised its terms of reference. Sessions will take place across the UK from next year as it aims to identify lessons from the government’s handling of the pandemic.
The announcement cane due to a threat from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group to bring a judicial review over the failure to provide a setting up date for the inquiry into the Government’s handling of the pandemic.
Campaigners, as well as opposition parties, have called for Wales to hold its own Covid inquiry – calls so far rebuffed by the First Minister Mark Drakeford who has said that the UK inquiry will cover all the bases.
“The UK inquiry into Covid-19 is now formally established and able to begin its important work,” the Prime Minister said in a written statement on Tuesday.
“The Inquiry will examine, consider and report on preparations and the response to the pandemic in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, up to and including the Inquiry’s formal setting-up date, 28 June 2022.”
The news comes more than six months after Mr Johnson appointed Baroness Hallett to chair the probe in December 2021, and after he previously said the inquiry would start in spring this year.
On Sunday, the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group threatened to bring a judicial review over the failure to provide a setting up date for the inquiry into the Government’s handling of the pandemic.
Campaigners, as well as opposition parties, have called for Wales to hold its own Covid inquiry – calls so far rebuffed by the First Minister Mark Drakeford who has said that the UK inquiry will cover all the bases.
Following Tuesday’s launch, the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign’s spokesperson Hannah Brady said: “Finally we can begin the process of learning lessons from the awful suffering we’ve endured…
“However it is pitiful that after six months of inexplicable delays, the Government has finally decided to act just two days after we announced that we were considering a judicial review over their time wasting.
“It goes to show that they were simply delaying the process for as long as they could get away with, and there are going to have to be serious consequences if valuable evidence has been lost as a result.
“Baroness Hallett is now going to have to get the process moving as quickly as possible so that lessons can be learned ahead of future waves.”
Mr Johnson said he accepted Baroness Hallett’s changes to the Government’s draft terms of reference for the inquiry “in full”, and proposed to appoint two additional panel members in the coming months so that the probe “has access to the full range of expertise needed”.
The inquiry’s aims include to consider any disparities in the impact of Covid on different categories of people, consider the experiences of bereaved families, highlight where lessons from the pandemic may be applicable to other civil emergencies, and to produce any recommendations “in a timely manner”.
Baroness Hallett said: “I am pleased to see all of my recommendations accepted by the Prime Minister and included in the final Terms of Reference. The Terms of Reference set the broad outline of the Inquiry.
“My team and I are ready to begin the Inquiry’s work at speed and in earnest. The Inquiry will be run independently, fairly and openly, and those who have suffered significantly during the pandemic will be at the heart of the Inquiry’s work.”
Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, chair of the all party parliamentary group on coronavirus, said: “While we welcome that the Inquiry and now the Prime Minister have accepted important recommendations made by our APPG including the use international comparisons and the inclusion of Long Covid, the omission of one vital element risks damaging public trust in the entire process.
“With one of the highest death tolls and deepest recessions, with repeated mistakes and millions in contracts unlawfully awarded, the Inquiry must publish interim findings before the next general election to ensure lessons are learned and those responsible are held to account.”
Labour MP Fleur Anderson tweeted: “It has taken far too long to get to this stage and the delay has been a clear attempt to avoid scrutiny of the Prime Minister’s failings before the next General Election.
Independent
Inquiry chair Baroness Hallett said the hearings would be “firmly independent”, with reports issued regularly.
More details about the next stages of the inquiry will be set out next month, the former High Court judge said.
She said her team would travel around the UK to hear people’s experiences.
Baroness Hallett will also examine how Covid affected different categories of people, its effect on bereaved families and how the findings could be applied to other national emergencies.
She said a “listening exercise” was scheduled for autumn to allow anyone who wanted to share their experiences to do so.
In a statement, the prime minster said: “The UK inquiry into Covid-19 is now formally established and able to begin its important work.”
Mr Johnson appointed Baroness Hallett to chair the inquiry in December 2021, and pledged it would start its work in spring this year.
In a letter to Baroness Hallett, the prime minister said he accepted “in full” the terms she had set out for the inquiry, calling them “broad and challenging”.
He said he would appoint two more panel members to the investigation in the coming months so it has “access to the full range of expertise needed”.
It will look at how decisions on limiting the spread of Covid were made and communicated, the use of lockdowns and face coverings, the impact of the pandemic on children and health and care sector workers and the protection of the clinically vulnerable.
Hannah Brady, spokesperson for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign, said the launch was “a special day for bereaved families from all corners of the country” and hoped “our awful experiences are learned from”.
But she said it was “pitiful” that the investigation was launched two days after the campaign group said it was considering a judicial review over “time wasting”.
“It goes to show that the government were simply delaying the process for as long as they could get away with,” she added.
Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, welcomed the inquiry and called for interim findings to be published before the next general election.
Several reports have already put the UK government’s handling of the pandemic under the spotlight.
A report by MPs on the Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee last October said the UK’s failure to do more to stop Covid spreading early in the pandemic was one of the country’s worst public health failures.
It said the government approach – backed by its scientists – was to try to manage the situation and in effect achieve herd immunity by infection. The MPs said this led to a delay in introducing the first lockdown, costing thousands of lives.
And a report by spending watchdog the National Audit Office last November found ministers were not properly prepared for a pandemic like Covid-19 and lacked detailed plans on shielding, job support schemes and school disruption.
The government said the unprecedented pandemic had challenged health systems around the world, not just the UK.
In total more than 179,000 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test. But the number of people with Covid on their death certificates is more than 196,00