Covid-19 Inquiry

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The inquiry regularly publishes details of the money that has been spent. The figures I have relate to the inquiry costs. The noble Baroness is correct that the organisations involved, particularly those with core participant status, are also likely to be putting in additional resources. I will try to establish whether we have an estimate of that.

From its establishment up to September 2024, the inquiry spent £124.2 million. As I noted in my initial response to these questions, the inquiry chair is delivering on the terms of reference agreed with the previous Government. She is under a statutory obligation to avoid unnecessary costs in the inquiry’s work and has been clear that she intends to complete her work as quickly and efficiently as possible. The Government also regularly publish their costs in relation to the inquiry response, and I will write to the noble Baroness on that.

Today’s debate has shown how it is hard to constrain costs when you have demands for the inquiry to look at every single aspect. This was a whole-society crisis—a whole-society emergency. It touched every aspect of society. That is not to downplay the cost of the inquiry. I note that the House of Lords report that was referenced earlier highlighted costs as one of its concerns.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, does the Minister share my disappointment that the eloquent contribution from the Front Bench opposite by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, for whom I have the greatest respect, did not include any apologies, not so much for Ministers partying while others suffered but for the fact that some people made millions—well, billions—supplying materials and equipment that subsequently turned out to be unusable? Will the Minister give me an absolute assurance that she and all her colleagues will co-operate fully with the Covid corruption commissioner to make sure that all those who wrongly profited from the Covid pandemic are brought to book?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I am sure that all those who are asked will co-operate fully with the Covid corruption commissioner. I do not entirely share my noble friend’s view. I felt that the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, did acknowledge that there had been issues that led to some of the problems the UK faced during the Covid pandemic. My view is that all political parties have a role to work together to ensure that our resilience is as strong as it can be for the future. I hope that we continue to work on a cross-party basis to improve this country’s resilience, and that all noble Lords feed into the wider review on the UK’s resilience, which the Government are undertaking at the moment.