At £300,000 a day, Covid research would be the most expensive ever, surpassing Bloody Sunday
A long-awaited investigation into the Covid pandemic is set to become the most expensive in history – costing an estimated £136,907 a day over the past year.
Taxpayers spent almost £70 million in the last financial year and the inquiry is not expected to deliver its findings until late 2026, so the final cost is likely to be around £200 million.
That would eclipse the £195 million spent on the 12-year investigation into the deaths of 13 people on Bloody Sunday.
More than half of the £94 million already spent on the Covid inquiry, chaired by retired Court of Appeal judge Baroness Hallett, has gone on legal costs.
A further £100,000 a day has been spent on a team of 265 civil servants working full-time to provide the inquiry with government documents and witnesses, separate figures published this week show.
The long-awaited Covid inquiry is being chaired by retired Court of Appeal judge Baroness Hallett
Professor Carl Heneghan, from the center for evidence-based medicine at the University of Oxford, who provided evidence for the study, told The times: ‘This is an exorbitant amount, but the whole way the investigation is structured is designed to be expensive.
‘The country is choosing a legalistic approach that is not the best way to learn lessons. It would be much cheaper and more effective if it actually took the approach of medicine and said we accept that mistakes have been made – and look at how to do things differently in the future.”
Lord Saville of Newdigate, who carried out the Bloody Sunday inquiry, defended the high costs. “It has to be thorough and fair,” he said. ‘That takes time and expertise and that is expensive.’
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which compiled the cost analysis, said: ‘The Covid inquiry must be short, sharp and decisive, not an expensive political pantomime.’
A spokesperson for the Covid Inquiry said: ‘It was the Government’s decision to set up this public inquiry with a very broad terms of reference. The scope of the research is exceptionally broad and touches on the work of many government departments in all four countries of Great Britain. It is mandatory to gather evidence from many organisations, especially those central to the response to the pandemic.’
A government spokesperson said: ‘To ensure transparency, the government has committed to publishing its costs in response to the investigation. This is in line with the research’s own quarterly financial reports.’