Johnson appoints former judge Lady Hallett to chair Covid public inquiry

Lady Hallett, a former senior court of appeal judge, has been appointed to chair the public inquiry into the Covid pandemic. Hallett, 71, a crossbench life peer, was coroner in the inquest into the 7 July 2005 terror attacks on London's transport network, which claimed 52 lives.

- Robert Booth

Boris Johnson announced the decision in a written statement to parliament yesterday, delivering on a promise to bereaved people to name a chair before Christmas.

The inquiry is due to begin in spring 2022 and is likely to be one of the most complex undertaken in legal history, as it explores a pandemic that has so far led to 146,627 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test.

Johnson told parliament that Hallett had run several “high-profile and complex” inquiries, and highlighted her roles as chair of the Iraq fatality investigations and as chair of the 2014 Hallett review of the administrative scheme to deal with IRA suspects known as “on the runs in Northern Ireland.

She is currently acting as coroner in the inquest into the death of Dawn Sturgess, who died in July 2018 following exposure to the nerve agent novichok in Salisbury, which the UK has blamed on Russia.