Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4 Report: Government Response

Rupert Lowe Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Restore Britain)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart.

The covid lockdowns were the darkest period in recent British history, bar none. Our freedoms were stripped away in ways most of us never imagined possible. Alongside all that came extraordinary pressure on millions of people to take the covid vaccine. There was pressure from politicians, employers, media institutions—everything, everywhere. For some, refusing meant losing their livelihood. They did it anyway.

We were told to trust the science, but science is not a commandment; it is a process of questioning, testing and challenging evidence. When a Government ask millions of healthy people to undergo an unproven medical intervention with unwanted consequences, scrutiny should increase.

Covid posed very different risks to different people. A vulnerable elderly person faced a very different calculation from a healthy 25-year-old. In fact, they could not have been more different. The 25-year-old was at no risk whatever—they were more likely to drown to death than have serious issues with covid—yet so much of the messaging treated vaccination as though it were the same decision for everyone. Why? Why were people asking questions treated with such hostility, and why were people who refused a medical intervention made to feel like social pariahs?

I am particularly concerned about children. For the overwhelming majority, the risk of severe covid illness was non-existent. It was a cold; there was no threat at all. Let us remember that the roll-out to teenagers was forced through against the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which originally declined to recommend a mass roll-out for younger teens.

The facts are quite clear. We do know that cases of myocarditis and pericarditis occurred following covid vaccinations, particularly among adolescent and young adult males. Millions of healthy young men and women should never have been forced to take that vaccination, and those responsible for that decision must be held accountable. Informed consent is the only way.

Then there was Nadhim Zahawi, the Conservative Government’s Vaccines Minister at the time, who now speaks for Reform UK. He stated that children aged 12 to 15 could receive the covid vaccine even where their parents objected. A 12-year-old could take the vaccination against their parents’ wishes. Think about that—12 years old.

Then came vaccine passports, also forced through by Reform UK’s Zahawi. I found the entire concept morally repugnant. The state making access to ordinary parts of life dependent on someone disclosing their medical status was criminal. That is not how a free country should operate. I did not take the covid vaccine. I did not want it, need it or take it. That decision cost me money and affected my travel, and I lost some friends. It made my life considerably more difficult, but I do not regret it for one moment.

This debate cannot end with another speech about how badly things were handled. We all know that. There must be accountability. By law, the inquiry cannot decide whether anyone is liable for what went wrong. That responsibility now rests with Government, regulators and, where necessary, the courts. The inquiry itself recognised the heavy cost of lockdowns, even if it criticised how decisions were made. That is exactly why there must be a full, honest reckoning of their true costs and benefits, as well as of the treatment of care home residents.

Questions about pandemic censorship and conflicts of interest demand answers too. Who decided which questions the public were allowed to ask and who profited from the answers? Those are questions that any healthy democracy should ask. The Government have accepted that the reform is needed, but they have offered no timetable and no detail. Those who have been injured by those vaccines cannot be left waiting any longer. The scheme needs an overhaul. Nobody can be above the law.