An inquiry into public inquiries

Public inquiries have become a significant part of public life. Whenever there is a major scandal or disaster, there are calls for a public inquiry to find out the causes and to recommend changes to prevent a recurrence. Some inquiries are non-statutory, favoured often by the government because they can be conducted relatively quickly and without a great commitment of resources. Others, not least those affected by a scandal or disaster, often prefer a statutory inquiry, given the powers of the inquiry to summon witnesses and to take evidence under oath. The public appears to favour the latter. A survey carried out by Crest Advisory found that 75% of those questioned felt that an inquiry should investigate the event or events as thoroughly as possible even if this means the inquiry taking longer or costing more than was originally expected.

In recent years the number of inquiries has increased. According to the government, 40 inquiries have been set up since 2005, 23 of them under the Inquiries Act 2005. Statutory inquiries include those into the preventability of the Omagh bombings, Covid-19, the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, the Manchester Arena bombings, the Grenfell Tower fire, infected blood and child sexual abuse.   

Prior to 2005, there were different statutory bases to inquiries. The principal one was the Tribunals and Inquiries (Evidence) Act 1921, which was cumbersome and required both houses of parliament to approve a secretary of state establishing an inquiry with the same powers as the High Court. When inquiries were established, they tended to be long and expensive.

The 2005 act gives wide-ranging powers to ministers to establish inquiries and imposes a duty on chairs to consider financial cost. The act allowed the lord chancellor to generate detailed rules of procedure and these took the form of the Inquiry Rules 2006.

In 2014, the House of Lords appointed a select committee to undertake post-legislative scrutiny of the 2005 act. The committee concluded that the act had ‘by and large… worked well’, but it noted that there was no consistency in ministerial decisions in setting up inquiries, that the secretariat of an inquiry had largely to start from scratch in setting it up, and that the act gave considerable powers to ministers that they had not had before. 

The committee made 33 recommendations, including that interested parties should be able to make representations to the minister about the final terms of reference, that there should be an inquiries unit with responsibility, inter alia, for updating Cabinet Office inquiries guidance and collating protocols of inquiry guidance, and that a minister’s powers to restrict public access to an inquiry should be removed and that a minister’s decision to terminate the appointment of a chair should be explained to parliament. 

The government accepted 19 of the recommendations, but in practice little has happened since to give effect to them. Where changes were accepted that required the 2005 act being amended, the government has said that there are no plans to introduce primary legislation, nor to change the Inquiry Rules. Ironically, there has been a change that was ruled out by the government in its response to the 2014 report. A small inquiries unit has been established in the Cabinet Office, which convenes quarterly meetings with inquiry secretaries, and separately with sponsor teams, to share learning and best practice.

Ten years on from the 2014 report, the House of Lords has appointed a select committee ‘to consider the efficacy of the law and practice relating to statutory inquiries under the Inquiries Act 2005’.  Given that the present parliament has only a short time to run, the committee is conducting a short inquiry – it has already held evidence-taking sessions, hearing from those involved in inquiries from different perspectives (chairs, counsel, secretaries, victims and survivors) as well as academics who have analysed inquiries in terms of how the public interact with inquiries, how inquiries are seen by, and the impact they have on, the executive. 

The committee is focusing on process and outputs. What can be done to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of inquiries – to what extent can inquiries avoid having to reinvent the wheel whenever they are established? Another matter is the implementation of recommendations. Today, once an inquiry has reported, it ceases to exist and ministers are not obligated to act on its recommendations. Should there be a body to monitor implementation? Should parliament have a more focused role in examining the government’s response to a report and as appropriate pursue its recommendations? Is this a task that should be assigned to a dedicated committee?

The committee continues to take oral evidence, but it has also issued a call for written evidence with a deadline of this Friday (22 March). The committee is keen to hear from as many interested parties as possible. Public inquiries are major tools of lesson-learning when there are disasters and scandals deriving from human error. It is crucial that they are effective as they can be in ensuring that lessons are learned and, most importantly of all, acted upon.

Lord Norton of Louth (Philip Norton) is chair, Select Committee on Statutory Inquiries