Delayed public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has been launched after Boris Johnson accepted calls to extend the terms of reference to consider their unequal impact on ethnic minorities, children and mental health.
Research President Heather Hallett and her team of 12 quality controls have begun work under the terms of the Investigations Act, which makes it a crime to destroy or manipulate evidence. He will be joined by two panelists who will be nominated by Johnson, although he had argued to chair alone.
The launch of what is expected to be one of the largest public inquiries conducted in the UK comes days after activists of the villains threatened legal action against the government for delaying the prime minister’s commitment to establish the inquiry. in the spring of 2022.
“Today is a special day for thousands of bereaved families in every corner of the country,” said Hannah Brady, a spokeswoman for Covid-19’s Mourning Families for Justice campaign. “We can finally begin the process of learning lessons from the terrible suffering we have suffered so that we can move forward with our lives and protect others in the future.”
The investigation “will examine, consider and report on pandemic preparedness and response in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland” and begins when the number of fatalities in the UK with Covid on its death certificate is approaching 200,000.
In an apparent warning to individuals and organizations required to present evidence and testimonies, which could include Johnson, cabinet ministers and senior public officials, Lady Hallett said: “I will not tolerate any attempt to deceive the investigation, to undermine its integrity. or their independence. ”
The terms of reference released by the Cabinet Office on Tuesday cover 37 topics divided into three areas: the public health response across the UK; the response of the health and healthcare sector across the UK; and the economic response to the pandemic and its impact, including government interventions.
Topics that are likely to be more controversial include the use of blockades, which could examine the effect of breaking the rules on Downing Street; the testing and tracing system; infection control in residences, which the high court has already ruled was illegal and “irrational”; the purchase and distribution of PPE; and the use of warnings not to resurrect.
In a letter to Hallett, Johnson described the terms of reference as “certainly … broad and challenging.”
Sign up for First Edition, our free daily newsletter, every weekday morning at 7:00 BST
The investigation will travel across the UK to gather evidence, and Hallett said he would listen to people who had suffered during the pandemic and felt they had been ignored. It will produce a series of interim reports “to reduce or prevent suffering and hardship in any future pandemic,” he said.
Trial hearings are expected to begin in 2023 and Hallett has called for patience as she and the team try to meet what she described as an ambitious timetable.
Downing Street agreed that the investigation should examine the obvious disparities in the impact of the pandemic on different categories of people, including those related to legal “protected features” under equality laws, which means that could examine the impact of poverty as well as race, religion, and gender. .
It will not consider individual cases of harm or death in detail, but will launch a “listening project” to collect accounts of the injured to “inform them of their understanding” of the impact of the pandemic, the response, and the lessons needed. to learn.