Covid-19 Inquiry Response Costs

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Written Statements

[The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)]

The UK covid-19 inquiry is examining the UK’s response to and impact of the pandemic. The Government are fully committed to supporting the work of the covid-19 inquiry and to learning lessons from the covid-19 pandemic to ensure the UK is better prepared for a future pandemic.

The Government recognise the unprecedented and wholly exceptional circumstances of the pandemic. The inquiry is therefore unprecedented in its scope, complexity and profile.

The independent UK covid-19 inquiry publishes its own running costs quarterly. The chair is under a statutory obligation to avoid unnecessary costs in the inquiry’s work, and she has been clear as to her intention to complete her work as quickly and efficiently as possible.

I would like to update the House on the costs to the UK Government associated with responding to the UK covid-19 inquiry. Figures provided are based upon those from a selection of the most relevant Departments and are not based on a complete set of departmental figures, and are not precise figures for accounting purposes. Ensuring a comprehensive and timely response to the inquiry requires significant input from a number of key Government Departments, including, but not limited to, the Cabinet Office, the Department of Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency, the Home Office and His Majesty’s Treasury, many of which are supported by the Government Legal Department. While every effort has been made to ensure a robust methodology, complexities remain in trying to quantify the time and costs dedicated to the inquiry alone.

It should be noted that alongside full-time resource within Departments, inquiry response teams draw on expertise from across their organisations. These costs, including costs associated with staff taking time to provide written or oral evidence, are not included in the costs below.

Breakdown of staff and costs

The Government response to the UK covid-19 inquiry is led by inquiry response units across Departments. The associated staff costs for Q2 2025-26 are below.



Q2 number of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff—207 full time equivalents.

Q2 cost of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff—£4,310,000 (including contingent labour costs).

Financial year 2025-26 (Q1 + Q2), total cost of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff—£9,314,000 (including contingent labour costs).