The Covid inquiry is on track to becoming the most expensive in history, costing the taxpayer at least £300,000 a day over the last year.
An analysis of Baroness Hallett’s investigation into the pandemic, which has been running for almost two years, reveals that it spent almost £70 million in the last financial year during which hearings have been taking place.
In total, the inquiry has so far cost the taxpayer £94 million. It is not expected to produce its final report until the end of 2026, suggesting it is on track to cost about £200 million in total. This would surpass the £195 million spent on the Saville inquiry into the deaths of 13 people on Bloody Sunday, which lasted 12 years.
However, the total cost to the taxpayer will significantly exceed the amount spent by the inquiry itself. Separate figures published by the government this week reveal that the inquiry’s proceedings cost Whitehall a further £100,000 a day last year. A team of 265 civil servants are working full time on providing the inquiry with documentary evidence and preparing government witnesses to give evidence.
This cost £18 million last year with a further £26 million spent on legal advice. In addition the Scottish government has spent £21 million so far on its separate inquiry into Covid while other public-sector organisations will have to bear costs associated with providing evidence to Hallett.
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The TaxPayers’ Alliance pressure group, which carried out the analysis using publicly available figures, said it was on track to be the most expensive of the 22 completed statutory inquiries since 2005.
Professor Carl Heneghan, from the centre for evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, who gave evidence to the inquiry, said it was the wrong model to learn lessons from Covid. “This is an exorbitant amount of money but the entire way the inquiry has been structured is designed to be expensive,” he said.
“It is setting itself to take sides with a legalistic approach which is not the best way to learn lessons. It would be much cheaper and more effective if it actually took the approach of medicine and said we accept that errors were made — and look at how we should do things differently in future.”
But Lord Saville of Newdigate, who carried out the Bloody Sunday inquiry, said it was necessarily expensive. “It has got to be thorough and it has got to be fair,” he said. “That takes time and expertise which is expensive. I have deep sympathy for the inquiry because when I was carrying out my work I was bitterly criticised for the cost but no one could ever say how it could be done better or more cheaply.
“These are very complicated and contentious issues which require highly skilled people and they are going to cost you. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it costs more than my inquiry.”
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A spokesman for the Covid inquiry said: “It was the government’s decision to set up this public inquiry with very broad terms of reference. The inquiry’s scope is exceptionally wide and touches on the work of many government departments in all four nations of the UK. It is obliged to gather evidence from many organisations, especially those at the centre of responding to the pandemic.”
A government spokesman said: “To ensure transparency the government is committed to publishing its costs responding to the inquiry. This is in line with the inquiry’s own quarterly financial reports.”
But John O’Connell, the chief executive of the TaxPayers’ alliance, said that while it was vital lessons were learnt from the pandemic, there was “little sign that we will be left with much more than an eye-watering bill when it finally comes to an end”. He added: “The Covid inquiry should be short, sharp and decisive, not an expensive political pantomime.”
Analysis: How much is the inquiry teaching us about pandemics?
£200 million and four years is a long time and a lot of money. But the critical question is whether it’s worth it.
Critics of the Covid inquiry argue, with some justification, that its remit is too broad and that too often its high-profile evidence sessions have been dominated by WhatsApp tittle-tattle rather than focusing on learning lessons. Much better, they say, would have been to have a shorter, less legalistic inquiry that focused on key areas where things might have been done differently.
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That, it is argued, would be more effective in helping the UK to better prepare itself for the next pandemic rather than raking over the coals of the last one. But others say that the point of the inquiry is not just to learn lessons but also to provide answers to the thousands of families who lost loved ones to Covid. And for that to happen there needs to be a fair, rigorous and comprehensive examination of all aspects of the pandemic which is inevitably going to be time-consuming and expensive.
As Saville, who chaired the expensive, lengthy but ultimately successful inquiry into Bloody Sunday put it: You can’t do these things on the cheap.
Figures involved in the Covid inquiry also point out that Baroness Hallett intends to publish her findings in stages — beginning later this year — to ensure that the government can start the process of implementing her recommendations even before the inquiry is concluded. They also defend the decision to travel to Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh for hearings, pointing out that the pandemic affected the whole of the UK and not just London.
In truth there can be no definitive answer to the question of the inquiry’s value — because it is so subjective. What is clearer cut is that the Covid pandemic itself cost the country billions. So preparing well for the next pandemic — however you do it — must be a good investment.
