The Covid19 pandemic has taken a lot out of all of us, and taken many lives, some of those could have been avoided. We should learn lessons that would stand us in good stead for the future. The Conservative Government of Boris Johnson seem to think so too, which seems to be the reason for setting up the Covid19 inquiry.
The Government selected a former judge Baroness Hallett to head the Covid19 enquiry, with a view to looking at how it happened and how the country responded. How this is to be done is set out in the draft Terms of Reference which then went to public consultation in April. Read more about the consultation here. The Government says it received over 20,000 responses, and I am pleased that one is mine.
So getting this email is a nice surprise. It is good to know there is work going on in the background on the comments people like me sent in response to the UK Covid19 Inquiry Terms of Reference consultation. I hope the result isn’t like what happened with the Sewell Race Enquiry where the government re-wrote the report to suit their “no racism” agenda.
On the website, we respondents are told “the feedback you have given has shaped Inquiry Chair Baroness Hallett’s recommendations to the Prime Minister on the final Terms of Reference, which will set the topics of the Inquiry’s investigations into the UK’s pandemic response“.
The one consolation so far is that my voice was one of those that highlighted the inequalities that showed up. Again I quote: “The unequal impact of the pandemic was a theme that strongly came through in responses to the consultation. Baroness Hallett has also recommended that the Terms of Reference be reframed to put inequalities at its forefront so that investigation into the unequal impacts of the pandemic runs through the whole Inquiry“.
Now let’s see how that pans out – if the Prime Minister accepts that recommendation as set out in the final report. I won’t hold my breath (outcome could be fatal), so will do this 
instead.