The Covid-19 inquiry’s procurement report and the Hillsborough law are not accidental companions. The same movement of bereaved families, many of the same lawyers and the same ideas connect them. In both cases the movement for justice was driven by ordinary people who refused to let institutions control the account of their own failures. That they both arrived within hours of each other meant that it was a good day for justice.
The inquiry chair, Heather Hallett, found that Britain entered Covid dangerously unprepared, leaving health and care workers without adequate protection and that £10bn of PPE spending was then wasted because of the flawed purchasing arrangements. The result of those failures were avoidable infections and deaths: families such as Naomi Fulop’s believe that inadequate protective equipment allowed the deadly virus to take the lives of vulnerable loved ones.
