The UK’s first investigation into its government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has found authorities “failed their citizens” with poor planning and enforcing disproportionate measures. The Inquiry, one of the largest in the UK’s history, included evidence from former prime ministers Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson. Inquiry Chair Baroness Heather Hallett, a retired judge, has the authority to summon witnesses and order documents to be produced to the committee. “The UK prepared for the wrong pandemic” with its acute focus on influenza, reads the report, Module One Report — The resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom, which is the fist of at least nine the Inquiry is expected to be released. It slammed authorities for not learning from the nation’s past and citing its “virtually abandoned” 2011 emergency response strategy by the time the pandemic hit in 2020, according to Hallett. Inquiry documents show British lawmakers cost some citizens their lives and point out these deaths were unnecessary if the UK had a better emergency preparedness plan. Johnson, who was prime minister at the time of the pandemic, testified at the Inquiry in 2023 the novel threat of the coronavirus was underestimated by his government. Johnson was caught breaking his own lockdown rules during a holiday party, for which he was widely criticized. Many reports indicate the hypocrisy was part of his downfall. During his testimony, Johnson apologized for the pain and suffering his decisions inflicted on citizens. .Throughout the investigation, multiple relatives of the more than 230,000 British people who had “died with COVID” have testified, with more to come through 2026. Given the staggering number of families impacted by the pandemic and the measures imposed on citizens, interviewing them is critical in holding the government to account for planning and response failures that could have played a role in those deaths. The Inquiry’s report, the initial of its kind, with subsequent reports to follow, said government leaders need to revamp the country’s emergency response plans after the significant failure the government demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Investigators called for a new, independent emergency response statutory body and said a nationwide pandemic response exercise should be conducted every three years, wrote Hallett.Hallett wrote in the report the Inquiry found government advice was too often tainted by “groupthink,” and slammed by name pandemic-era Health Secretary Matt Hancock and his two predecessors Jeremy Hunt and Andrew Lansley for their outdated emergency response strategy. The retired judge noted the "labyrinthine" systems in the UK said they, along with those of other “devolved” nations, "need an overhaul."Time and resources that could have been spent on planning a modern pandemic response were instead spent on contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit, said the report. The belief widely held prior to 2019 that Britain would be one of the most well-prepared countries in the world in pandemic response was resoundingly false, wrote the Inquiry, pointing to data demonstrating increasing health issues such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease, in recent years, and the national health system (NHS) strained near to, or beyond, capacity. Newly elected Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised the Inquiry for its thorough work and repeated the rhetoric the pandemic-era government had “failed” citizens. “(The report) confirms what many have always believed — that the UK was underprepared for COVID-19.” Starmer’s government is “committed to learning the lessons from the inquiry and putting better measures in place to protect and prepare us from the impact of any future pandemic,” he said in a statement, per Bloomberg. Inquiry public hearings will close summer of 2026. The next report will examine decision-making and political governance specifically, and is expected to be published in 2025.
