Boris Johnson has come under fire from experts and bereaved families for delaying until spring 2022 the newly announced public inquiry into the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Labour’s Lord Falconer, who passed the Inquiries Act as lord chancellor, said the government would be confident the Covid inquiry would not conclude before the next general election, expected in 2023. Johnson signalled the inquiry was unlikely to start before next spring because of a high likelihood that Covid cases would increase again in the winter. David Nabarro, a special envoy on Covid, told the BBC that the inquiry’s start date was a bit “distant” and that “people ought to be doing studies now”. Falconer, now the shadow attorney general, said Johnson had invented a “totally bogus excuse” for pushing back the start date and that the inquiry should “get up and running now”.

Source: The Guardian May 12, 2021 19:02 UTC