The delayed public inquiry into the UK’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic was launched after Boris Johnson accepted calls for an extension of the mandate to take into account its uneven impact on ethnic minorities, children and mental health.
Investigation Chair Heather Hallett and her team of 12 QCs began work under the terms of the Investigations Act, which makes it a crime to destroy or falsify evidence. She will be joined by two panel members who will be appointed by Johnson, although she has struggled to chair alone.
The launch of what is expected to be one of the largest public investigations conducted in the UK comes days after mourners’ activists threatened to sue the government for delaying the prime minister’s commitment to launch an investigation in the spring of 2022.
“Today is a special day for thousands of grieving families from all over the country,” said Hannah Brady, a spokeswoman for the Covid-19 Grieving Families for Justice campaign. “We can finally begin the process of learning lessons from the terrible suffering we have experienced so that we can move forward with our lives and protect others in the future.”
The investigation will “examine, review and report on the preparation and response to the pandemic in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland” and will begin when the number of deaths in the United Kingdom with Covid in their deaths approaches 200,000.
In an obvious warning to people and organizations required to present evidence and witnesses, which may include Johnson, cabinet ministers and senior government officials, Lady Hallett said: “I will not tolerate any attempts to undermine the investigation, to undermine its integrity. or its independence “
The Terms of Reference published by the Cabinet on Tuesday covered 37 topics, divided into three areas: the public health response across the UK; the response of the health and care sector in the United Kingdom; and the economic response to the pandemic and its impact, including government intervention.
Topics that are likely to be the most controversial include the use of blocking, which can explore the effect of breaking the rules on Downing Street; testing and tracking system; infection control in nursing homes, which the Supreme Court has already ruled to be illegal and “irrational”; the purchase and distribution of PPE; and the use of non-resuscitation notices.
In a letter to Hallett, Johnson described the terms of reference as “undoubtedly … broad and challenging.”
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The investigation will travel around the UK to take evidence, and Hallett said he would listen to people who were injured during the pandemic and believe they were ignored. It will prepare a series of interim reports “to reduce or prevent suffering and hardship in any future pandemic,” she said.
Evidence hearings are expected to begin in 2023, and Hallett asked for patience as she and her team try to meet what she describes as an ambitious schedule.
Downing Street agreed that the investigation should examine the differences evident in the impact of the pandemic on different categories of people, including those related to legal ‘protected characteristics’ under equality laws, which means the impact of poverty as well as race, religion and gender can be explored.
It will not deal in detail with individual cases of injury or death, but will instead launch a “hearing project” to collect mourners’ accounts to “inform its understanding” of the impact of the pandemic, the response and the lessons to be learned. learned.
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