Inquiry ‘must report by end of the year’
Starmer piles pressure on Prime Minister to ensure official review into Government’s Covid response faces no further delays
‘At the heart of this is every family who made enormous sacrifices for the good of the country or who tragically lost loved ones’
KEIR STARMER has ramped up pressure on Rishi Sunak to ensure the official Covid inquiry can report by the end of the year following the publication of The Lockdown Files.
The Labour leader urged the Prime Minister to reassure MPS there would be “no more delays” to the independent review, as he stressed the “country deserves better”.
Mr Sunak insisted the inquiry had all the resources and powers it needed, stressing there was a “proper process to these things” and the team should be left to “get on and do their job”.
It comes as the Government is facing renewed scrutiny of its Covid decisions after The Daily Telegraph revealed it had obtained more than 100,000 Whatsapp messages sent between Matt Hancock and other ministers and officials at the height of the pandemic.
Downing Street has so far refused to set a deadline for the Covid inquiry, led by Baroness Hallett, with Mr Sunak’s official spokesman insisting it is “not for us to impose timelines on her”.
At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, Sir Keir said: “At the heart of this is every family who made enormous sacrifices for the good of the country or who tragically lost loved ones. The country deserves better.
“The Covid inquiry has already cost the taxpayer £85million and hasn’t heard from a single minister yet. So, can the Prime Minister assure the House no more delays, that the inquiry will have whatever support it needs to report by the end of this year?”
Mr Sunak replied: “The last couple of years were an incredibly difficult time for everyone involved in the health service and I pay tribute to all their hard work.
“Rather than comment on piecemeal bits of information I am sure the honourable gentleman will agree with me the right way for these things to be looked at is the Covid inquiry, that is why we have established the Covid inquiry,” he added.
“There is a proper process to these things – it is an independent inquiry, it has the resources it needs, it has the powers it needs, and what we should all do in this House is let them get on and do their job.”
Reacting after the Commons exchange, a Labour spokesman said there should be an answer for people “as soon as possible”, claiming there was “clearly wasted time” between the point at which the inquiry was announced in 2021 and the publication of the terms of reference the following year.
“We would want to be assured that the time that was being taken was not due to a lack of resource or support or government co-operation when it comes to the inquiry,” he said.
“I would note that it took over a year from the announcement of a public inquiry through to the terms of reference being announced, which clearly wasted time that could otherwise have been spent with the inquiry getting on with its work, and we could be closer to getting an answer now. And I would point to the fact that there are a number of other countries, whether that’s Brazil or Australia or Sweden or France, who are further ahead with their own inquiries into this matter.”
Peter Bone, a former Tory Party minister, has also suggested the inquiry should be expedited.
During an urgent question in the Commons, he told Helen Whately, the minister for social care: “It seems to me what should happen is the Covid inquiry should deal with all these matters properly. The one question I would have for the minister is: is it possible to get the Covid inquiry to report earlier?”
Ms Whately said the timing of the inquiry is “not something which is in the control of ministers”.
Baroness Hallett has insisted it “will not drag on for decades” and “there will be no whitewash”.
Other major official inquiries have taken many years to conclude. Lord Saville’s inquiry into the Bloody Sunday atrocity took 12 years, while the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War took seven years to report its findings.