Urgent Call: Support our cross-party independent inquiry into the government’s handling of Covid-19 ahead of this coming winter.
The UK is one of the worst-hit countries in Europe. We've seen multiple failings in the government handling of the crisis to date. Alongside the usual threats of winter months interacting with any coronavirus flare-ups, we also have fallouts from the first wave. The UK public deserves answers quickly about how this all will be handled in time for winter.
We started calling for a public inquiry in April. However, despite calls from ourselves and many others, the PM continued to stonewall and delay. Therefore, we decided to build a formal cross-party group of MPs to run an urgent inquiry. We knew that to act now would save lives.
We established an official All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus, with Layla Moran MP as Chair and vice-chairs from Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem SNP and Green parties. We immediately put out call for evidence and built a secure evidence portal to ensure we could receive public/individual testimonials alongside official health, science and expert bodies. We then set up weekly oral evidence hearings to bring professional & communities' accounts together into one place for an open, transparent evaluation to understand what’s needed for the months ahead.
-- A screenshot from our second live Oral Evidence Session, 5th August 2020
This evidence will help inform parliamentary action. The evidence we gather here will also be of key importance to anyone demanding the launch of a full scale judge-led public inquiry to deal with issues of bereaved families, PPE procurement scandals, and more.
This open, transparent inquiry is for everyone. If you or your family have been affected by coronavirus, if you have been involved in the response to coronavirus, or if you are a scientist or health expert looking to submit evidence to inform our recommendations to the UK Government, you can submit evidence here.
As of 24th July: We’ve now received over 1000 independent submissions of evidence.
We've already had submissions from the British Medical Association (BMA), Doctors' Association UK (DAUK), Age UK, NHS Providers, several Royal Colleges and many other key organisations. We now need the resources to ramp up our processing capabilities and hard promotion over the parliamentary summer recess - this is the time when we've got the best shot at driving political stories and taking the public inquiry mainstream.
14th July: 250 submissions received in first two days through our public evidence portal.
11th July: Evidence portal officially launched
18th June: Nationwide polling shows 53% of the public are now calling for an independent inquiry. Read the press briefing.
1st June: Open letter to government signed by 27 leading medics and scientists to order a public inquiry to prepare for a second wave. Read the press briefing.
Your donation will help us collate first hand evidence submitted by the public to inform government policy and save lives.
We must raise at least £75,000 to support this inquiry. That breaks down into -
- (1) expanding our team with more researchers & managers to handle the huge amount of evidence pouring in and the APPG Inquiry schedule,
- (2) expanding our team with press/comms to handle the huge interest from media,
- (3) finances for advertising the open portal to draw in more evidence, and
- (4) finances to write up reports, disseminate them and promote the inquiry and conclusions from it across social media and other publicity channels.
If you’re able to contribute financially to our cause, you will be helping to give a voice to those affected, to bereaved families, to NHS frontline staff and experts.
Together, we can build the evidence base to inform parliamentary decisions and pressure the government to commit to a full public judge-led inquiry to bring accountability and justice to the mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis.
The APPG Coronavirus Inquiry is an independent, cross-party parliamentary group established by March For Change.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) members include: Layla Moran MP (Chair), Dr Dan Poulter MP (Vice-Chair), Clive Lewis MP (VC), Liz Saville-Roberts MP (VC), Baroness Jenny Jones (VC), Dr Philippa Whitford MP (VC), Debbie Abrahams MP (VC), Munira Wilson MP (VC), Baroness Masham of Ilton, Caroline Lucas MP, Baroness Altmann.
The full list of members of the APPG (over 60 MPs and peers) can be viewed here.
The team powering the APPG Coronavirus Inquiry is the March for Change campaign which acts as the official secretariat for the inquiry. The team is headed by two experienced directors (Dr Mike Galsworthy & Tom Brufatto) with longstanding reputations as effective campaigners. Dr Mike Galsworthy is a well-known campaigner on matters of science and health.
March for Change have built the campaign to the inquiry stage through a petition (with over 115K signatures), commissioning YouGov polling, using science and health champions in press/media, including organising letters of top health professionals, and finally forging an official all-party parliamentary group that can run the inquiry.