The Covid-19 public inquiry is facing calls to consider structural racism in every part of its investigation after it emerged almost all minority ethnic groups were more likely to die from the virus than white British people.
Earlier this month, the lead counsel to the government-commissioned inquiry said it was not planning to consider structural racism in the first module of the inquiry examining pandemic preparations. But bereaved families and race equality organisations have told the inquiry chair, Heather Hallett, that all 11 modules of the sprawling investigation must consider the phenomenon as a key issue.
The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign also accused the inquiry of “running scared” over what it claims is its unwillingness to examine “why the death toll was significantly higher among the Black and minority ethnic community”.
The death rate in the earliest phases of the pandemic was almost three times greater for Bangladeshi men than that of white British men and twice as high for Pakistani women than white British women, according to the Office for National Statistics.
But Hugo Keith KC, counsel to the inquiry, said in a hearing on 14 February that the opening module on pandemic preparations was already looking “at the way in which protected characteristics were or were not properly safeguarded”. He said the need to examine the whole of government would make the search of the indications of structural racism “an impossible task”. He urged Lady Hallett to reject calls for her to commission expert evidence on structural racism.
“If the Covid inquiry is serious about understanding what went wrong during the pandemic and learning lessons to protect lives in the future, then understanding why the death toll was significantly higher among the Black and minority ethnic community and listening to the bereaved has to be a priority,” said Jean Adamson, a spokesperson for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign. It has signed a letter to Hallet with the Runnymede Trust, the Windrush National Organisation and two dozen other organisations.
They told Hallett: “Until we dismantle the factors which enabled the pandemic to be racialised in its impact, we cannot mitigate a similar outcome from any future crisis responses.”
They said, for example, that government policies towards undocumented migrants, such as denying them recourse to public funds, the right to rent and charging for the NHS had a “disproportionate impact on people of colour, exacerbated financial insecurity, precarious employment, insecure housing and barriers to healthcare”.
A spokesperson for the inquiry said “the unequal impacts of the pandemic will be at the forefront of all of the inquiry’s investigations”.
“For the inquiry’s first investigation, into the UK’s pandemic preparedness and resilience, the inquiry has instructed two world-leading inequalities experts, Prof Michael Marmot and Prof Clare Bambra,” they said. “The investigation, which is already under way, will consider the extent to which the government took into account the needs of minority groups, and others, when making civil emergency plans.
“The inquiry’s terms of reference require it to “consider any disparities evident in the impact of the pandemic on different categories of people, including, but not limited to, those relating to protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 and equality categories under the Northern Ireland Act 1998.”
It is the latest in a series of disputes between organisations representing thousands of people killed by the virus and the government-commissioned inquiry before it starts taking evidence in earnest later this spring.
A row is also simmering about the way a “listening exercise” has been commissioned to gather public stories about the pandemic rather than hearing more of those in formal evidence. There are also complaints that some groups of people have been denied core participant status. Hallett has previously warned against allowing the already hugely wide-ranging inquiry to “drag on for decades”, citing the need to learn lessons before any potential new pandemic.
