Everything you need to know about the UK Covid-19 inquiry

The Covid-19 inquiry is an independent process scrutinising how the UK handled the coronavirus pandemic, in which more than 200,000 people have so far died. It was established by the government and is taxpayer funded, but is independent.

Politicians, experts, civil servants and representatives of groups particularly affected by Covid will be called as witnesses and interviewed by the inquiry’s chief counsel, Hugo Keith KC, over the next few years, as it tries to uncover why – for instance – the UK has had one of Europe’s highest death rates for under-65s.

The pandemic made apparent many of the UK’s weaknesses – from its healthcare to its political decision-makers – so expect the inquiry to be broad and expansive in its scrutiny.

The chair of the Covid inquiry will release reports throughout the process, meaning we won’t have to wait until the end for some conclusions to be drawn.

When is the Covid inquiry?

Preliminary stages for the first three modules of the inquiry began in 2022, but public hearings with evidence-giving begin on 13 June 2023.

It will run Mondays to Thursdays (except for the first week, which is Tuesday to Friday) from 10am to 4pm. The first module is six weeks.

The inquiry is expected to last until at least 2026. openDemocracy wants to report on every day of the inquiry and has already crowdfunded enough to cover the initial modules.

Who is involved?

The inquiry is run by Heather Hallett, who is a retired Court of Appeal judge and crossbench peer. She previously chaired the inquiry into London’s 7/7 bombings.

The chief counsel to the inquiry who will interrogate witnesses is Hugo Keith KC. He has represented the Queen and Rebekah Brooks, and was also head counsel for the 7/7 bombings inquiry.

Core participants are those formally recognised by the inquiry as representing the voices of particular groups, such as Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), or the British Medical Association (BMA). Some will be able to speak during the public hearings.

What are the controversies?

In May, it was revealed that the Cabinet Office was withholding a number of Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and notebooks from the inquiry after deeming certain material “unambiguously irrelevant”.

The government department has now launched a judicial review of Hallett’s decision to demand the documents under inquiry law. To complicate matters further, Johnson has handed redacted versions of the material directly to the inquiry. The inquiry has said it is confident it will get these documents in full, unredacted form.

Then there’s the issue of who gets to speak. Families of the bereaved feel their voices are not being heard after all 20 people put forward by the group were denied the opportunity to give evidence in either Module 1 (on how prepared the UK was for a pandemic) or Module 2 (on the government’s decision making during the first two years of Covid).

The chair has encouraged anyone affected by the pandemic to make a submission to the so-called ‘Every Story Matters’ process, which runs alongside the inquiry and will produce reports for it to consider.

But many feel this process is not sufficiently independent after openDemocracy revealed PR firms who work (or have worked) for the government and Tory Party had been contracted to help design Every Story Matters. One of those PR firms, 23Red, will no longer be working on the project after our investigation was cited in a hearing.

What’s the structure?

The inquiry is broken down into a number of different modules. Six have been announced, with more expected to come. Each module will go through a preliminary hearing, and after those are complete, the evidence-giving will begin, which will call various witnesses. The first three modules have already been through preliminary hearings.

Until the evidence-giving gets under way, we will not know who is going to be called – though it is expected that David Cameron and George Osborne will be interviewed in the first module, and Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock in the second module in 2024.

Module 1 is about resilience and preparedness. It will look at whether “the pandemic was properly planned for and whether the UK was adequately ready for that eventuality,” covering “resourcing, risk management and pandemic readiness”, and will “scrutinise government decision-making relating to planning.”

Module 2 is about decision-making in the UK overall, and then in devolved governments, between 2020 and early 2022. It should include “initial response, central government decision making, political and civil service performance as well as the effectiveness of relationships with governments in the devolved administrations and local and voluntary sectors”. It will also review “decision-making about non-pharmaceutical measures [the rather clunky name given to lockdowns and other restrictions] and the factors that contributed to their implementation”.

Module 3 is about healthcare, including “healthcare governance, primary care, NHS backlogs, the effects on healthcare provision by vaccination programmes as well as long covid diagnosis and support.”

Module 4 is about the development of vaccines, their roll-out across the UK, and their eventual uptake.

Module 5 will examine government procurement across the UK.

Module 6 will examine the care sector across the UK.

How do I watch it?

Everything will be streamed live on YouTube.

Hearings will be open to the public to attend in person. They will take place at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry Hearing Centre at Dorland House in Paddington, London. The postcode is W2 6BU.