Boris Johnson has announced that an independent public inquiry into the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic with statutory powers will begin in spring 2022.
After months of demands over the timeframe of a probe, the prime minister told MPs it will be held under the 2005 Inquiries Act, with the powers to summon witnesses to give evidence under oath and compel the release of government documents.
Around 15 months after the country entered its first lockdown and 127,629 deaths, according to the latest official government figures, Mr Johnson said the state had an “obligation to examine its actions as rigorously and as candidly as possible”.
Insisting that devolved administrations would be consulted before the final scope of the inquiry was published, he said the process will “place the state’s actions under the microscope”, adding: The government will establish an independent public inquiry on a statutory basis.”
The Covid-19 bereaved justice group, which has been spearheading the calls for the inquiry, welcomed the statutory basis of the probe, but warned that spring 2022 “is simply too late to begin”.
“It sounds like common sense when the prime minister says that an inquiry can wait until the pandemic is over, but lives are at stake with health experts and scientists warning of a third wave later this year,” the organisation said. “A rapid review in summer 2020 could have saved our loved ones who died in the second wave in winter.”
A Downing Street spokesperson declined to put a timescale on the inquiry or to say whether it can be expected to conclude before the next general election.
The spokesperson said the chair and terms of reference for the inquiry would be made public “in due course” and said that Mr Johnson will be ready to give evidence under oath if requested.
Other inquiries launched by the 2005 Inquiries Act that are still active include the Undercover Policing Inquiry (2015), the Grenfell Tower Inquiry (2017), the Infected Blood Inquiry (2017), the Manchester Arena Inquiry (2019) and the Jermaine Baker Inquiry (2020).
Attempting to explain why the inquiry will not begin before spring 2022, the prime minister suggested there was a “high likelihood of a surge” in the winter of Covid cases and an increase in hospitalisations — requiring officials’ attention.
“Our own scientific advisers judge that although more positive data is coming in and the outlook is improving there could still be another resurgence in hospitalisations and deaths,” he told MPs on Wednesday.
In a sober warning, he said: “We also face the threat of new variants and should they prove highly transmissible and elude the protection of our vaccines they would have the potential for even greater suffering than we endured in January.
“There is any case a high likelihood this winter when the weather assists the transmission of respiratory diseases.”
While welcoming the announcement, Sir Keir Starmer questioned why the inquiry could not begin before 2022, asking in the Commons: “I understand a statutory inquiry will take time to set up, but why could it not be later this year? Why could it not start earlier?”
Mr Johnson said the preparatory work to establish the terms of reference and the inquiry chair “will happen before the spring of next year”, adding: “We will be getting it under way, we will be taking some key decisions.
“I think the House will agree that it would not be right to devote the time of people who are looking after us, who are saving lives, to an inquiry before we can be absolutely, much more certain than we are now that the pandemic is behind us.”
