In a quiet room in Whitehall, one minister picks up a pen.
With a single signature, hundreds of millions of pounds of public money are committed, thousands of lives are put under the microscope, and the most powerful investigation the British state can muster is born.
No vote in Parliament. No approval from victims. No judicial oversight.
Just one politician – often from the very department about to be eviscerated – deciding whether the nation spends a decade and a fortune searching for the truth.Welcome to the strange, expensive, and deeply flawed world of the UK public inquiry.
The Two-Tier System: Statutory vs Non-Statutory
There are two kinds of public inquiry – and the difference is everything.
Statutory inquiries – the nuclear option – are governed by the Inquiries Act 2005.
They are launched by a minister, chaired by a senior judge, and armed with terrifying legal powers: compel witnesses under oath, seize documents, jail those who lie or refuse to cooperate (up to 51 weeks).
Hearings are public unless national security demands secrecy. Grenfell. Covid-19. Infected Blood. Post Office Horizon. These are the big ones – and they cost a fortune.Non-statutory inquiries are the lighter-touch alternative.
No compulsion powers. No obligation to hold public hearings. They can be set up by ministers, devolved governments, even local councils or private bodies. Participation is voluntary. They are faster, cheaper – and frequently converted into statutory inquiries when it becomes clear cooperation is not forthcoming (see: Lucy Letby neonatal deaths).
The Price of TruthSince 2010, Britain has spent more than £1.3 billion on major public inquiries – and the meter is still running.
- UK Covid-19 Inquiry: £200 million and rising toward £400 million
- Grenfell Tower: £187 million
- Infected Blood: £150 million
- Post Office Horizon: £120 million
- Undercover Policing: £82 million after ten years – still unfinished
- Bloody Sunday (1998–2010): £195 million over twelve years
Top barristers bill £1,000 an hour. Junior counsel £500. Solicitors £700. And the taxpayer funds every side – the inquiry’s own lawyers, the government’s lawyers, and the legal teams of victims designated as “core participants”
.Who Gets Paid?
- The Chair: Baroness Hallett (Covid-19 Inquiry) is paid the equivalent of a serving Lady Justice of Appeal – £266,556 a year, totalling £794,000 plus expenses since 2021.
- Counsel to the inquiry and legal teams: often the biggest single cost line.
- Core participants (victims, bereaved families, public bodies): can apply for their legal costs to be met from public funds – decided by the chair, capped, and frequently controversial.
- Ordinary witnesses: no fee for giving evidence (it’s a civic duty), but travel, hotels, subsistence and proven loss of earnings are reimbursed.
The Recommendations That Nobody Has to Follow
Herein lies the great deception.
A statutory inquiry can send you to prison for contempt during its investigation phase.
But once the final report lands – 58 recommendations from Grenfell, 40 from Infected Blood, 30 from Covid Module 1 – those recommendations have no legal force whatsoever.
Inquiry
Headline Recommendation
Progress (December 2025)
Grenfell (2024)
Ban flammable cladding
Only 70% of high-risk buildings remediated
Infected Blood
£10 billion compensation scheme
On track – £2 billion+ already paid
Covid-19 Module 1
Overhaul pandemic planning
Just 40% implemented
Post Office Horizon
End private prosecutions
Done – law changed 2024
The House of Lords concluded in 2024:
“There remains no statutory duty to implement or even properly explain rejection of inquiry recommendations.”
The Ultimate Power – and the Ultimate Conflict
Only a minister can establish a statutory inquiry.
Parliament cannot. Victims cannot. The courts cannot.
The same political class that may have presided over the disaster gets to decide whether that disaster is independently investigated – and on what terms.
David Cameron ordered Leveson. Boris Johnson ordered Covid. Michael Gove upgraded Grenfell to statutory. Keir Starmer’s government is currently deciding whether several new scandals merit the same treatment.
As one bereaved Grenfell campaigner pointed out: “They investigate themselves with our money and then ignore their own findings. It’s theatre – very expensive theatre.”
Time for Reform
Britain can clearly afford the most lavish inquiries on earth.
What it cannot seem to afford is to act on them.
A simple legislative fix exists: make inquiry recommendations legally binding unless explicitly rejected by a vote of both Houses within twelve months, with mandatory annual progress reports to Parliament.
Until that happens, the pen remains in the minister’s hand – and the truth, however expensively extracted, remains optional.
Because right now, the United Kingdom has built the world’s most powerful truth machine…
… and deliberately removed the switch that makes anyone turn it into action.
Andrew Eborn is a Barrister, broadcaster, international investigative journalist, Futurist & President of Octopus Tv Ltd.
All figures are sourced from official inquiry reports, government financial statements and parliamentary records as of December 2025.
