The Covid inquiry will examine the impact of Brexit on Britain’s preparedness for the virus and the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Two years after then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that a public inquiry would be set up, the chairwoman, Baroness Hallett, will officially start the first day of testing on Tuesday.
The first module, which investigates the country’s preparedness for the crisis, will include evidence on “any impacts arising from the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union.”
The research team will also look at the vaccine program in module four, examining whether Britain’s vaccine response was more effective outside the EU.
Johnson and Conservative ministers have argued that Brexit allowed the UK to chart its own course with the vaccine, both in terms of licensing and buying vaccines.
While the UK’s vaccine rollout was faster than the EU’s, Kate Bingham, former head of the government task force. He said the speedy approval “has nothing to do with Brexit.”
He said it was due to the effectiveness of the UK’s existing Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Former Prime Minister David Cameron and former Foreign Minister George Osborne are expected to appear at an inquiry hearing next week. The TUC has said its austerity cuts left the NHS and social care sector “dangerously understaffed”.
It comes as care minister Helen Whately refused to endorse former health secretary Matt Hancock’s claim that the government threw a “protective ring around care homes” at the height of the pandemic.
She said The Guardian she wanted to “use my own words”, adding: “I remember doing everything I felt we could do to help nursing homes and social care more broadly at an incredibly difficult time.”
As the inquest officially begins its first day of evidence today, a video will play featuring people from across the UK sharing their experiences of loss for those gathered at the hearing center in west London.
The investigative team before the opening warned that the film of “some of those who suffered the most during the pandemic” may be “difficult to watch”.
Elkan Abrahamson, a lawyer representing the British Covid-19 group Bereaved Families for Justice (CBFFJ), which has almost 7,000 members, said Tuesday “marks the end of a two-year battle by mourners to obtain a legal public inquiry.” ”.
The campaign group has complained of feeling sidelined after presenting 20 people to be considered as witnesses for the first module, none of whom said they have been called to testify.
But a spokeswoman for the inquiry said Lady Hallett “has made it clear that she has not ruled out asking bereaved people to testify in subsequent inquiries, for example through the use of DNR orders.”
Recent weeks have seen a dispute between the chair of the investigation and the government of Rishi Sunak over access to the material.
The prime minister has been accused of a “cowardly cover-up” after the Cabinet Office announced a High Court challenge to Lady Hallett’s request for Johnson’s raw WhatsApp messages and notebooks.
The Cabinet Office said some of the information requested by the inquiry does not relate to the government’s handling of the coronavirus and is “unequivocally irrelevant.”
The investigation is divided into six modules, with public hearings scheduled to conclude in the summer of 2026 and interim reports released before then.
Lady Hallett plans to publish reports for modules 1 and 2 next year. Module 2 of the UK-wide inquiry will look at central government decision-making and examine issues from the perspective of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.