20 November 2025
Over 760 pages of forensic analysis the Covid-19 Inquiry Report has laid bare the range of “obvious” and “higher risks” to Disabled people, both from the virus itself and its counter measures that were known even before the pandemic began, and became only more apparent in its early days. It details Westminster and devolved governments’ “remarkable” failure to anticipate and plan an effective response to those obvious risks, and the generational carnage that resulted.
The report lists the grossly disproportionate rate at which Disabled people died in the pandemic. From March to July 2020: in England and Wales for Disabled men the risk of death was twice as high as it was for non-Disabled men and for Disabled women it was 2.4 times as high. In Scotland, Disabled men were 3 times more likely to die and Disabled women 3.2 times more likely to die than non-Disabled counterparts. In Northern Ireland from March to Sept 2020 the Covid-19 death rate was 1.7 times higher for men and 3.3 times higher for women compared to non-Disabled people.
The Inquiry underscores that the risk was particularly stark for those with a learning disability. Data from Spain and Italy as early as April 2020 showed a disproportionate mortality rate for those with a learning disability and/or autism. Until 5 June 2020 Learning Disabled people aged between 18-34 were 30 times more likely to die from Covid-19. A person with Down’s Syndrome was also over 30 times more likely to die from the virus.
These egregious failures arose from, in the Inquiry’s words, doing “too little too late”. The report has found that it was not until 21 May 2020 that the position of Disabled people was first considered at a UK Ministerial level. It was then not until 12 November 2020 that Public Health England published a report which considered the disproportionate number of people with learning disabilities that had died from Covid-19. All of this shows that the disproportionate impact was not inevitable. It also shows once again that all too easily Disabled people become an afterthought in government decision making even where lives are at stake.
Contrary to Boris Johnson’s assertion at a 25 October 2020 meeting, it was wrong to believe that the people who died had “had a good innings” or “reached their time anyway”.
As numerous witnesses to the Inquiry report identified, Governmental attitudes reflect the “lack of diversity” amongst decision makers and, at Westminster, the Inquiry describes a “toxic and chaotic culture at the heart of government” encouraged by Boris Johnson where Dominic Cummings “contributed significantly to a culture of fear, mutual suspicion and distrust that poisoned the atmosphere in 10 Downing Street”.
In Northern Ireland, the Inquiry has found “dysfunction in decision making” that “should never be repeated” and that “at certain critical points in the pandemic, ministers (from the two main political parties) failed to put the common interest of all people in Northern Ireland above their party-political interests”.
In Scotland, the Inquiry referred to Inclusion Scotland’s ‘Rights at Risk’ report which stated that there was an “abyss between the rhetoric of national policies and what happens on the ground.”
We welcome the Inquiry’s recommendations, many of which reflect the arguments Disabled People’s Organisations have made throughout the Inquiry hearings. They include:
- Recommendation 3: There should be a register of experts to assist governments in future emergencies, “a more diverse range of backgrounds might have helped to challenge orthodox scientific thinking, and brought wider experience of public health conditions on the ground”. With regard to decision making that profoundly affects Disabled people, it is important that there is access to expert advice including advice informed by Disabled people themselves.
- Recommendation 6: The UK Government should bring into force s.1 of the Equality Act, implementing the socio-economic duty and the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive should consider an equivalent provision within section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act. To assist governments to understand the lives of those who face disadvantage, including Disabled people and to address systematically the factors that contribute to direct, and indirect, harm in a pandemic.
- Recommendation 8: The UK Government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive should each agree a framework that identifies people – such as Disabled people – who would be most at risk of becoming infected and dying from a disease and those who are most likely to be negatively impacted by any steps taken to respond to a future pandemic.
- Recommendation 10: Decision making groups in a future pandemic in the governments of each UK nation should include a minister with responsibility for representing the interests of groups such as Disabled people.
- Recommendation 14: The UK Government and devolved administrations should each develop action plans for how government communications will be made more accessible during a pandemic. As a minimum, these should include making provision for the translation of government press conferences into British Sign Language (and Irish Sign Language in Northern Ireland) and the translation of key announcements in the most frequently spoken languages in the UK. It is emphasised in the Inquiry report that these are not “secondary considerations” because, “everyone should be able to understand the action that their government is asking them to take” and some of the improvements made later in the pandemic highlighted the difference that proper and timely consideration of accessibility issues can make.
Any failure to implement these recommendations will be an eyes wide open choice to consign Disabled people to the same fate as befell us in the Covid-19 pandemic. As the ‘Locked Out’ report in Wales found for many Disabled people “The clock was turned back. They lost their independence, some their human rights, and others their lives”. The fate of Disabled people in the Covid-19 pandemic was not inevitable and our fate in the next pandemic is not either. We now look to the UK Government and devolved nations to act with the urgency these recommendations require.
Notes to editors
The Disabled People’s Organisation core participants in Module 2 comprise of Disability Rights UK, Disability Action Northern Ireland, Disability Wales and Inclusion Scotland. They are represented in Module 2 by a team at Bhatt Murphy led by Shamik Dutta and Caleb Simpson with counsel Danny Friedman KC and Anita Davies of Matrix Chambers. Module 2 of the Covid-19 Inquiry considered decision-making and political governance during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 Inquiry Module 2, 2A, 2B & 2C Report is publicly available (Volume I) (Volume II)
For further comment please contact: Georgia Bondy at Disability Rights UK (georgia.bondy@disabilityrightsuk.org) or Fazilet Hadi at Disability Rights UK (fazilet.hadi@disabilityrightsuk.org)
Rhian Davies at Disability Wales (rhian.davies@disabilitywales.org)
Nuala Toman at Disability Action Northern Ireland (Nuala Toman at Disability Action (nualatoman@disabilityaction.org)
Maia Pace at Inclusion Scotland (maia@inclusionscotland.org)
