Covid Inquiry Costs Taxpayers £100 Million More Than Thought
The Covid Inquiry has cost taxpayers around £100 million more than previously thought, according to official figures, once the colossal cost of the Government’s responses to Baroness Hallett is included. The Telegraph has the story.
The inquiry, which was announced by Boris Johnson in 2021, has been described as a colossal waste of money after concluding that lockdowns could have been “avoided entirely”.
So far it has cost £191 million and produced just two of 10 expected reports – with the final sum expected to surpass £208 million, making it the most expensive inquiry in British legal history.
Transparency data from the Cabinet Office showed that the Government spent more than £100 million responding to the inquiry between April 2023 and June this year.
The documents, analysed by the BBC, said that 248 staff were working equivalent to full-time on the Government’s response to the Covid inquiry at the last count.
More than half the extra money was spent on legal fees and consulting external lawyers – making the total bill around 50% higher than previously thought.
The extra spending has been called an “absolute disgrace” by critics.
John O’Connell, Chief Executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance think tank, said of the latest figures: “It’s an absolute disgrace that ministers have burnt through an extra £100 million on top of what the inquiry itself has already spent.
“These new figures show the total cost to taxpayers will be far higher than previously feared.
“Ministers must urgently get a grip on the spiralling costs of the Covid inquiry and commit to delivering answers swiftly and efficiently.”
Recent polling has found that the majority of the British public (67%) regard the Covid inquiry as a waste of taxpayers’ money.
£100 million responding to an inquiry? How do you spend £100 million replying to Baroness Hallett’s emails? What a stupendous squandering of taxpayers’ money.
Worth reading in full.
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They only need 248 people and innumerable outside lawyers if the government is trying to manipulate the evidence. Truthfully disclosing minutes and reports costs very little.
It was worth every penny.
All that money spent…… a bucket of whitewash could have been procured much more cheaply and would have done the job just as effectively.
Could have probably nicked a report from another country that managed to do their inquiry in a fraction of the time and for a fraction of the cost. Just find & replace country name.
What a shock. Criminals investigating themselves. Medical Nazis whose conclusion was always, ‘we were not medical-nazi enough’.
“More than half the extra money was spent on legal fees and consulting external lawyers – making the total bill around 50% higher than previously thought.”
The corruption is simply gobsmacking.
The Pandemic That Never Was just takes and takes.
The inquiry is a shining example of the parasite class at work. Vast sums of money employ a small army of parasites. In addition to burning taxpayers money, they waste the time of large numbers of useful people. Dominic Cummings, who does have useful ideas about government (even if some of them are wrong) was summoned to give evidence and then subjected to character assassination in the inquiry’s report.