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Open letter to Rishi Sunak raising concerns about the Covid Inquiry
The Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP
Prime Minister, 10 Downing Street
Copy to: The Rt Hon Baroness Hallett DBE
20 December 2023
Dear Prime Minister,
Concerns in relation to the UK Covid Inquiry
We write as a community of parents, experts, parliamentarians and other
concerned individuals asking you urgently to review the Terms of
Reference for the Covid Inquiry.
We support the Covid Inquiry’s stated objective to learn lessons that
will inform future pandemic responses in the UK, but we have serious
concerns about the approach of the Inquiry to date.
In particular we fear that the Inquiry’s current approach is not only
failing adequately to identify those lessons, but risks entirely
undermining the validity of its future findings by failing to examine a
number of critical and highly salient points relating to the nature of
the pandemic and the desirability and effectiveness of the UK’s response.
Deviation from its stated aims
According to its Terms of Reference, the overriding aim and purpose of
the Inquiry is to identify lessons to be learned “to inform preparations
for future pandemics across the UK”. In a number of highly material
respects, however, we believe the Inquiry as currently proceeding is
failing to meet these stated aims.
Harms, costs, QALYs
The Inquiry is creating the impression – reflected in extensive print
media and social media commentaries – of having predetermined that
lockdowns were necessary, proportionate and justified, notwithstanding
the very extensive documented harms they have caused, and continue to cause.
On numerous occasions the Inquiry appears to have failed to consider
whether there was any alternative to the lockdowns that were imposed on
this country and has instead appeared to be almost exclusively focused
on whether lockdowns should have been implemented harder, sooner and for
longer. [1]
The question of whether lockdowns were necessary, proportionate and
justified, however, can only meaningfully be considered in the context
of available alternative strategies (including by examining
international comparators) and – crucially – only once one has attempted
to evaluate the harms caused by locking down.
Many in the UK, including respected members of the scientific community,
believe lockdowns were not necessary, proportionate, or adequately
justified by the evidence, and that the harms caused by mass mandatory
lockdowns were more severe than the harm that would have been done by
the virus had a more consensual, focused protection policy been adopted
(e.g. as in Sweden). An important report published by the Centre for
Social Justice just last week [2] underlines the catastrophic impact of
successive lockdowns on the social fabric of the UK, most particularly
those already disadvantaged. Its findings include that “[t]he lockdown
measures, meant to curb the spread of the virus, had severe consequences
on various aspects of life for the most disadvantaged” and it states
that although the disadvantage gap was already significant prior to
2020, “the lockdown implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic was the
dynamite that blew it open”.
Prime Minister, as you said yourself in your testimony to the Inquiry, a
quality-adjusted life years (QALY) analysis carried out by two leading
UK academic institutions “suggested that the lockdown in its severity
and duration is likely to have generated costs that are greater than the
likely benefit”. We believe this to have been a vital piece of evidence
and are deeply concerned that the Inquiry’s focus on deaths from
Covid-19 as the sole or primary measure of the success or otherwise of
the Government’s approach to lockdowns [3] grossly underweights the
harms of lockdowns and other NPIs. Certainly it underweights in
particular the known severe impacts on children and young people, who
were substantially less likely to become ill or to die as a direct
result of the virus, but far more likely to face increased risk from
lockdown and school closures.
The Inquiry cannot satisfactorily contemplate lessons learned from the
pandemic, and specifically the impact of the response to the pandemic,
unless alongside the actual or perceived benefits it objectively,
openly, and fairly considers the harms of lockdowns, school closures and
other measures of lockdowns for children, the young and society as a
whole, including on a QALY basis. Similarly, any objective and fair
consideration of the harms of lockdowns and other measures must include
the short- and long-term impacts of approximately £400,000,000,000 of
debt incurred by the Government to fund pandemic-related policy
decisions, which must now be repaid by future generations.
Decision-making processes
Extensive questioning of witnesses to date has been devoted to examining
the relationships between Ministers and their advisers and officials,
and in particular to building an impression that poor working practices,
and individual instances of political indecision or incompetence in the
face of uniquely reliable scientific expertise, caused delays in
implementing unquestionably necessary interventions, including lockdowns
in particular.
Yet topics of potentially critical significance to our collective
understanding of how decisions were made – and therefore how better
decisions might in future be made – have been entirely omitted,
including: the manner and extent to which Ministers considered it
appropriate to brief and seek the support of Parliament for nationwide
interventions which profoundly impacted human and civil rights in this
country and which implicated massive public spending commitments; and
the ethical aspects of policy-making, including the role and apparently
premature standing down of the Government’s own expert ethics advisory
group in December 2021.[4]
The inquiry has also shied from considering the effect on
decision-making of the suppressive activities of both the Government
(through its CDU and RRU agencies in the DCMS and Cabinet Office
respectively) and private sector partners (including in particular media
and social media organisations) in relation to academic, journalistic
and clinical commentaries, opinions and advice perceived as casting
doubt on the Government’s policy decisions.
Approach to experts and their evidence
It is a matter of public record that the Inquiry’s approach to the
selection of core participants and to the selection of witnesses to give
evidence in person has given rise to an impression among members of the
public and a significant element of UK print media that the Inquiry has
consistently selected and favoured those who supported lockdown policies.
A criticism levelled at the Inquiry – fairly, in our view – is that by
elevating and leaving unchallenged the opinions and disputed advice of
Government-appointed scientific experts, while appearing to disparage
the credentials and opinions of experts who have not supported the
‘official science’, the Inquiry is perpetuating an impression that it
has a preconceived view of what is ‘the right’ scientific opinion and is
closed to considering dissenting views, when it should be inquisitorial
and open-minded about the competing scientific perspectives at pivotal
moments in the pandemic response.
Conclusions and corrections
For the reasons stated above, we each hold serious concerns about the
conduct of the Inquiry to date and believe the Inquiry’s approach is now
damaging public confidence in its proceedings and by extension in any
recommendations which might ultimately be made.
It is critical that the very significant public expense of the Inquiry
is not wasted, and that the Inquiry adopts an inquisitive open-minded
approach to its proceedings so that lessons can genuinely be learned,
rather than appearing to be predetermined.
To that end, we respectfully ask that you take prompt action to endorse
a review and update by the Inquiry of its Terms of Reference, in
particular to:
● ensure that metrics other than deaths from COVID-19, including QALYs
lost as a result of lockdowns, are adopted for judging the response to
COVID-19;
● ensure that there is an independent and thorough review of all
relevant data with respect to NPIs, including a rigorous examination of
underlying assumptions (especially those which have since been shown to
have been unreliable);
● commit to explore the extent, role and impact of the agencies of
Government engaged in the monitoring and suppression of commentaries and
opinions perceived as casting doubt on the Government’s pandemic policy
decisions; and
● commit to explore the ethical aspects of decision-making, including in
relation to the Government’s public communication campaigns.
We also respectfully ask that you take such action as you can to support
or require the Inquiry to ensure that witnesses will be selected and
their evidence treated in such a way as to avoid any appearance of
favour based on support for the Government’s lockdown policies. Doing so
should enable relevant counterpoint perspectives to be adequately taken
into account, which we believe to be critical if the public is to have
confidence in the Inquiry’s findings.
We are aware that a letter was sent to the Inquiry on 15 December 2023
by JMW Solicitors acting on the instructions of UsForThem which has
signalled that, unless the Inquiry can promptly correct its course to
address these issues of predetermination and fairness, the validity of
its eventual findings are likely to be subject to a legal challenge. We
support the objective of that letter and we would support the principle
of a legal challenge to the Inquiry’s findings should it fail now to
address these critical issues.
Yours faithfully,
Signatories Include:
Lord David Frost
Lord Zac Goldsmith
Baroness Foster
Baroness Fox
Baroness Morrissey
Lord Daniel Moylan
Lord Ian Strathcarron
Lord Andrew Robathan
Ian Paisley MP
Rt Hon Sammy Wilson MP
Sir Desmond Swayne MP
Sir Robert Syms
Danny Kruger MP
Philip Davies MP
Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP
Miriam Cates MP
Chris Green MP
Professor Karol Sikora
Professor David Paton
Professor David Livermore
Doctor Tetyana Klymenko
Doctor Chao Wang
UsForThem
[1] The starkest example of many can perhaps be found in the questioning
of Michael Gove, where Counsel to the Inquiry stated: “There was no real
argument as to whether, for good and obvious public health reasons,
these measures had to be contemplated. They were matters of life and
death. So there wasn’t really a thesis and an antithesis position here,
Mr Gove. All the public health advice on a public health crisis were
pointing in one direction” and later in questioning of Boris Johnson:
“on the premise that the lockdown was necessary on 23 March, was it
nevertheless imposed too late?”.
[2]
https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/CSJ-Two_Nations.pdf
[3] This was apparent from the very outset in Counsel to the Inquiry’s
opening speech: “However, if the protection of life is the pre-eminent
duty which every government owes to the people, the numbers of those who
died is the marker against which the government’s response must be
judged. This is the stark metric which matters most”.
(
https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/06170713/C-19-Inquiry-3-October-2023-Module-2-Day-1-2nd-Revision.pdf)
[4]
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/11/24/the-scandal-of-how-the-government-shut-down-its-ethics-committee-after-it-tried-to-intervene-on-the-vaccination-of-children/