Inquiry must be open, independent, fair – and short

The problem with complex public inquiries is that they can last years and years. I would say to the Scottish government what you need is an open, independent and fair inquiry which weighs up the evidence on both sides within a sensible timeframe.

The foot and mouth inquiry was chaired by Iain Anderson who was determined it should be completed within a year. We had that deadline to work to and we stuck to it.

For the Covid inquiry you have to find a chair who is willing to do the same and who has allround competence, rigour and urgency and won’t take no for an answer.

I don’t know why the First Minister has yet to agree a chair for the inquiry. I can’t see the downside in her at least giving a direction of travel.

The danger is that a Covid inquiry would go on and on. It has to be wide enough and vigorous enough to generate public acceptance. However, most reasonable people will not want a potentially lengthy Iraq-style inquiry that lasted seven years, or a Bloody Sunday-style inquiry which lasted over ten years.

There is a balance between getting sensible lessons learned and getting the most important practical recommendations out as soon as possible to improve the operation of the Scottish system for the future. Although history won’t repeat itself exactly, it may often repeat itself in different ways.

So conducting investigations in interim phases is a good idea, for example to first look at the way in which hospital patients were moved to care homes because that is certainly a big issue, if not the biggest.