The generation of children who spent some of their most formative years in lockdown will spend decades suffering as a result of this policy decision. To make matters worse, young people may have been effectively silenced by the Tory government’s COVID response.
According to campaigners, the UK’s official inquiry initially omitted the lockdown’s impact on children altogether. Though this element has now been added, no timetable has been set for any investigation. The Daily Telegraph reports that evidence might not be heard on this vital issue until 2025 or 2026.
Molly Kingsley of child advocacy group UsForThem is among those most vocal about this silencing, writing that
children’s health, well-being, and life chances were trashed by a pandemic response which failed to consider them. Their exclusion from [the COVID inquiry] stands to void [its] findings and emphasises the need for wholesale reform to the way we legislate and protect children in politics (or fail to).
A group of 40 charities and experts have also written to Baroness Hallett, chair of the inquiry, demanding an explanation for “unacceptable delays” in investigating the main impacts of lockdown on children. Among these are Save the Children UK (SCUK) and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. SCUK Director Dan Paskins, quoted in the Telegraph, stressed that “children are being silenced by this inquiry.” He added:
They must not be ignored. Despite repeated promises from chair, the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Hallett, that she would urgently ensure children’s memories are captured and that the issue matters to her, no measures are in place to make this happen.
Children are not an afterthought or an inconvenience in this inquiry process. Their lives were turned upside down by government decisions and any barriers in the way of them having their say need to be removed immediately.
Despite excluding this group from its investigations to date, the COVID inquiry has already spent £40 million on just 23 days’ worth of evidence.
