A public inquiry into the government's handling of coronavirus will start before the next Queen's Speech, Boris Johnson announced today.
The Prime Minister finally put a deadline on kick-starting a full independent process to examine his actions in the pandemic - after 127,000 UK deaths.
He told MPs an inquiry will begin "within this session" of Parliament. Sessions usually last around a year from one spring to the next.
But the length of a session is also at the Prime Minister's choosing and he can opt to make it last until 2024 if he wants to. The 2017-2019 'Brexit session' of Parliament was the longest since the Civil War at two years and five months.
It comes after the government repeatedly refused bereaved families' demands for an immediate public inquiry, saying it would not be "appropriate" because officials' "workload" was too high.
The PM's confession came as he was blasted by Labour leader Keir Starmer for announcing a Queen's Speech that failed to fix crisis-hit social care - in an "insult to the whole nation".
The government said it would “bring forward proposals in 2021” to reform funding of care homes - despite Boris Johnson claiming in 2019 he had “prepared” a “clear plan”.
Sir Keir told MPs: "It is unforgivable that there is no clear plan to fix social care.
"I remind the House that it’s now 657 days since the Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street and said: ‘We will fix the crisis in social care with a clear plan we have prepared’."
Sir Keir said there was still no funding, no timescale and no details today.
He told MPs: "Failure to act for a decade was bad enough. But failure to act after the pandemic is nothing short of an insult to the whole nation."
Mr Johnson made his commitment in Commons exchanges over the Queen's Speech.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, who has campaigned for an urgent public inquiry, asked him: "Will the Prime Minister tell this House if, during this session of parliament, he will set up the public inquiry into the government’s handling of Covid that he promised me in this house last June?"
Mr Johnson replied: "I can certainly say we will do that within this session. I’ve made that clear before.
"I do believe it’s essential that we have a full, proper, public inquiry into the Covid pandemic and I’ve been clear with the House before."
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “We welcome this commitment and will hold the Prime Minister to it.
"It must be entirely open and truly independent, have the trust and confidence of bereaved families, and cannot be an exercise in the Government marking its own homework.
“We went into this pandemic with the foundations of our public services and our communities weakened by a decade of Conservative governments. We must learn lessons from that, as well as from how the crisis has been handled.”
