Coronavirus public inquiry to be held in spring 2022

12 May 2021, 12:32 BST

Updated 23 minutes ago

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PM Boris Johnson said the UK’s Covid response would be “placed under the microscope”

An independent public inquiry into the handling of the coronavirus pandemic will be held in spring 2022, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told MPs.

Mr Johnson said the government was “fully committed to learning the lessons at every stage of this crisis”.

The inquiry will place “the state’s actions under the microscope”, he added, and take evidence under oath.

But Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer questioned why the inquiry could not start earlier, such as later in 2021.

He also urged the government to consult the affected families at the earliest moment.

The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group has been lobbying for a meeting with Mr Johnson since last summer, and for the launch of an urgent independent investigation into the pandemic.

The group has been calling for the inquiry to begin this summer, saying that learning lessons from the pandemic “is critical to saving lives now and in the future”.

During a statement in the Commons, the prime minister said: “Amid such tragedy the state has an obligation to examine its actions as rigorously and as candidly as possible, and to learn every lesson for the future – which is why I’ve always said when the time is right there should be a full and independent inquiry.”

The devolved administrations will be consulted before the scope of the inquiry is outlined, he added.

Mr Johnson said because of the threat of new coronavirus variants and a possible winter surge in infections, spring would be the best time to hold the inquiry.

“Should these [variants] prove highly transmissible and elude the protection of our vaccines, they would have the potential to cause even greater suffering than we endured in January,” he said.

“There is in any case a high likelihood of a surge this winter when the weather assists the transmission of all respiratory diseases and when the pressure on our NHS is most acute.”

He added: “So I expect that the right moment for the inquiry to begin is at the end of this period in the spring of next year, spring 2022.”

But Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for clarification on whether the inquiry will be formally opening in spring or whether that will be when work begins to establish the inquiry.

In response, Mr Johnson said the preparatory work to establish the terms of reference and the inquiry chairman “will happen before the spring of next year”, adding: “We will be getting it under way, we will be taking some key decisions.”

He added: “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.”

In a statement, Jo Goodman, co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said it was a “huge relief” to hear the prime minister committing to the inquiry they have been calling for.

She said any inquiry “must involve bereaved families from the start, helping to choose the chair as well as determining the terms of reference”.

But she said spring 2022 was “simply too late to begin” the inquiry, saying: “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.

“A rapid review in summer 2020 could have saved our loved ones who died in the second wave in winter.”