STEPHEN GLOVER: After my day at the Covid Inquiry, I fear it’s already become an unmanageable monster that will drag on for years

When Boris Johnson announced a public inquiry into the Government’s handling of the Covid pandemic last year, I gave a small inward cheer.

For it’s surely obvious that while there were successes such as the vaccine roll-out, there were also failings. Why was so little personal protective equipment available at the start of the pandemic? Why were elderly patients with Covid ejected from hospitals and shoved into care homes in the early days without being tested?

Above all, why were lockdowns considered a sensible measure in view of mounting evidence that they have left an enduring legacy of social and economic harm?

These are important questions which a rational society should address so that if, God forbid, there is another pandemic in the foreseeable future, the same mistakes won’t be repeated.

Yet I fear the hope that such matters would be coolly and forensically examined is already crumbling — and the Covid Inquiry has been going for little more than a week.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt leaves the UK Covid-19 Inquiry at Dorland House in London today

Aggressive

For one thing, it has already grown into an unmanageable monster. Even before the doors opened in a government office near Paddington station in London, it was clear the Covid Inquiry has been taken over by highly paid lawyers, who will talk and talk and talk.

Some of these were on show when I witnessed proceedings earlier this week. There is lead counsel Hugo Keith KC, a smoothie with a sting in his tail. More overtly aggressive was Kate Blackwell KC. Ten other senior barristers have been appointed to the inquiry’s legal team.

Since it is thought that it will last for at least three years and possibly as many as seven, we can be certain that Hugo, Kate and the gang are going to earn a lot of money. Roll on that villa in Tuscany or the South of France!

In all, at least 63 lawyers will work directly for the inquiry, while more than 100 have been named either as the official representatives of ‘core participants’, or have submitted documents on their behalf in recent weeks.

READ MORE: Jeremy Hunt tells Covid Inquiry that ‘groupthink’ meant government never considered how lockdowns and self-isolation could stop mass virus deaths in the 2010s – because a flu pandemic would spread ‘like wildfire’ and ‘herd immunity’ was the only option 

Little wonder that the bill for the inquiry reached almost £114 million before it started. It’s likely to be the most expensive investigation of its kind ever to have taken place in this country.

Presiding over this legal jamboree — which moved at a very leisurely pace when I was there — is Baroness Hallett, a former Appeal Court judge. She looked genial and quite engaged. As she is 73, she could be 80 before stumps are pulled.

In Sweden, the authorities have already concluded their Covid investigation, producing a 1,700-page report. Why do we take so long in Britain? Could it be because politicians have handed over the process to lawyers, who seem to have little interest in being speedy and concise?

Why do we rely on astronomically well-paid barristers when setting up public inquiries? Is there no one else capable of asking pertinent questions? Hugo and Kate displayed enormous confidence when examining former ministers, as lawyers will, but I got the impression that neither of them has much idea of how Whitehall works.

Presiding over this legal jamboree — which moved at a very leisurely pace when I was there — is Baroness Hallett (pictured), a former Appeal Court judge

By the time Baroness Hallett eventually publishes her report, the country will have largely forgotten about the pandemic, and have limited interest in her recommendations. It is absurd — and also inimical to good governance —that this inquiry should drag on for years.

But then the report into the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in which 72 residents died has been delayed until 2024. That’s seven years, apparently the going rate for these things. It was so for the Chilcot report into the Iraq War, finally published in 2016. And it still didn’t nail Tony Blair!

Everybody must have their say, however tangential their connection to the matter under investigation, and my learned friends are only too happy to go along with it. Baroness Hallett has said she is determined to ‘undertake and conclude the work of this inquiry as speedily as possible’. How many years?

The first week has felt like an object lesson in wasting time. Hugo Keith and Kate Blackwell have attempted to prove that Tory austerity weakened the nation’s defences against Covid.

READ MORE: George Osborne questions whether schools should have been shut during Covid lockdowns as ex-Chancellor insists his austerity policies meant Britain was BETTER able to respond to coronavirus 

Swipe

Hugo also contrived to have a swipe against Brexit, claiming it had ‘crowded out and prevented’ the work needed to improve pandemic preparedness. Without an intimate and expert knowledge of Whitehall, how on earth is it possible to assert such a thing?

Both he and Kate pursued the line that Tory parsimony undermined the health of the population. David Cameron denied the allegation on Monday, while former Chancellor George Osborne tried to fend off Kate on Tuesday.

Last week a scathing submission by epidemiologist Sir Michael Marmot and academic Clare Bambra stated: ‘The UK entered the pandemic with its public services depleted, health improvements stalled, health inequalities increased and health among the poorest people in a state of decline.’

Former chief medical officer and the nation’s erstwhile nanny-in-chief Dame Sally Davies offered supporting fire on Tuesday: ‘We were at the bottom of the table on number of doctors, number of beds, number of ITUs [intensive therapy units], number of ventilators.’

You get the picture. There has been an attempt, encouraged by Hugo and Kate, to pin some of the blame for Covid deaths on Tory austerity.

Believe me, I’m no fan of George Osborne’s, and rather enjoyed watching Kate Blackwell lay into him. He could have mounted a better defence if he had come armed with the following statistics.

Former British Prime Minister David Cameron departs the Covid-19 Inquiry hearing center in London, on June 19

According to the King’s Fund, spending in England on health and social care rose from £130.2 billion to £156 billion between 2010/11, the first year of Tory rule, and 2019/20, the eve of the pandemic. These figures are at 2022/23 prices.

In other words, despite what Sir Michael Marmot, Clare Bambra, Dame Sally Davies, Hugo Keith and Kate Blackwell may allege, spending on health and social care in England increased by almost exactly 20 per cent during a decade of supposed austerity. If only Cameron and Osborne had had the nous to say that!

Even though the facts don’t sustain the thesis, I’ve no doubt we’ll hear much more during this inquiry about how the wicked Tories allegedly paved the way for Covid deaths. A special ‘module’ is going to be devoted to ‘health inequalities’. Perhaps Sir Michael Marmot and Dame Sally will be invited back.

Lashing

And what of lockdown – surely the most important question? There is no planned module to discuss that. No doubt it will be intermittently touched on. To be fair to Dame Sally, she suggested on Tuesday that lockdown has ‘damaged a generation’. It had been awful ‘watching young people struggle’.

That’s right. Reflect on what has happened to our schools, universities and the economy. Look at the ‘staggering rise’ in eating disorders among teenage girls reported in The Lancet (cases up by 42 per cent). Consider the deterioration in cancer treatment just cited by Macmillan Cancer Support.

Will this long-winded, time-wasting Covid Inquiry dare to get to the centre of things, and tell the truth about the lasting damage of lockdown? Or will it traipse down a dozen by-ways, lashing the Tories over austerity whenever the opportunity arises?

I think we know the answer.

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