A former education secretary widely derided for his leadership of the department during the pandemic will face a grilling by the UK Covid-19 inquiry on the impact of school closures on children.
Gavin Williamson, who faced repeated calls to resign over his handling of school closures, the cancellation of exams and a controversial U-turn on the grading of GCSE and A-level results, will be questioned about his two years in the job when the inquiry looks at the impact the pandemic had on children in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
But the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK Group said it felt “betrayed” and “silenced” after not being chosen as a core participant, which can ask questions of witnesses during a hearing if given permission by its chair Heather Hallett.
Matt Fowler, a co-founder of the group, said it “didn’t make sense”, adding: “Ignoring the bereaved is a betrayal of trust.”
Nicola Brook, a solicitor at Broudie Jackson Canter, which represents 7,000 families from the group, said parents who lost children “feel their dead child’s voice is being silenced”.
“Those left behind have a unique and invaluable perspective and should be heard, not ignored,” she said.
A spokesperson for the inquiry said core participant status was not necessary to contribute to the inquiry and that module eight was seeking evidence “from a wide range of individuals and organisations about the impact of the pandemic on children”.
More than 43,000 people had contributed to the UK-wide listening exercise Every Story Matters, while its research project, Children and Young People’s Voices, would hear from about 600 affected children and young people, the spokesperson said.
Clair Dobbin KC, the lead counsel for the inquiry, said she was “aware that important figures like the then-secretary of state for education Sir Gavin Williamson did not give evidence” in previous modules, and the inquiry intended on calling him to do so.
Williamson was sacked from his cabinet role in September 2021, and said at the time that he was proud of his changes to post-16 education “despite the challenges” of the pandemic.
Dobbin said the inquiry’s eighth module would examine the planning of remote education and “what was understood at the time about the impacts that the closures of schools and lockdowns were having on children”.
It would also look at the impact of the pandemic on children at risk, children whose families receive support from social services, young carers, those in care and care leavers, as well as those in youth custody and those in the immigration system.
Steve Broach KC, representing a group of children’s rights organisations, said that during the pandemic the rights and interests of children and young people were “routinely overlooked” and sometimes “actively undermined”.
He said black and racialised [those from ethnic minority backgrounds] children and children with additional needs were hit particularly hard, and babies were among the worst sufferers. Broach noted that data on serious incident notifications showed a 31% rise in death or serious harm to children under the age of one between April and September 2020, compared with the same period in 2019.
Sarah Hannett, representing Long Covid Kids, said that according to Office for National Statistics figures, as of March this year, 55,000 children and young people had experienced symptoms related to Covid-19 for more than 12 weeks after the infection. The pandemic had a “profound” and lasting impact on their lives, which had been exacerbated by the message that Covid-19 was harmless to children. “The inaccuracy of that message has been fatal,” she said.
Adam Wagner, representing clinically vulnerable families, called for the inquiry to establish procedures, such as the provision of high-quality masks, clean air and good ventilation, for schools.
“When schools are safe for the most vulnerable to attend, they are safe for everyone to attend,” he said. The failure to do that had tragic consequences, he added, giving the example of Cara, 16, who was not supported in wearing a mask at school and went on to pass the infection to her shielding, clinically vulnerable mother, who died from the illness.
“Cara self-harms because she blames herself. She hasn’t been to school since,” he said.
