Covid inquiry is a great betrayal of our children and tragically wasted opportunity

I had low expectations for the eighth and most recent section of the Covid Inquiry - the 'Children's Module', which has just wrapped up - but even those expectations were dashed after listening to four weeks of evidence which has been both horribly illuminating and, paradoxically, bitterly predictable. The latest chapter of this absurdly glacial, costly and tunnel-visioned public inquiry started at the end of September, half a decade after the first mass school closures of Spring 2020 had ended.

On one level, it revealed little that wasn't already achingly obvious years ago: that lockdowns and school closures were a barely mitigated disaster for children whose interests were shamefully under-represented in pandemic decision-making. Yet listening to the granular detail of the many failings dissected across four weeks was somehow still astonishing.

From Gavin Williamson, then the Education Secretary, detailing that his Department had not been involved in key decisions concerning schools; to former Children's Commissioner Baroness Anne Longfield who revealed that she was informed about school closures the evening before (a gesture she graciously described as "a courtesy", but which seemed anything but); to Chris Whitty rueing the damage done to kids by over-done lockdown rules, this was a wholesale failure by the machinery of State to protect more than ten million children in its care.

Perhaps most illuminating was to see the extent to which the three most senior decision-makers in the land when it comes to kids and education - the PM, Education Secretary and Children's Commissioner - had been united in their initial instincts to resist school closures. "The eventuality of school closures was one we regarded with horror," recalled Boris Johnson.

Yet instead of examining how it came to be that those sound instincts were routed by the narrow short-term concerns of unelected officials, the Inquiry retreated to the comforting presumption that it has clung to throughout: that the policy choices of blanket lockdowns and mass school closures, although grievously damaging, were the only right choices - just exercised too little and too late.

"Do you accept it was a dereliction on the part of the Government, to fail to plan for school closures?" Clair Dobbin, lead KC for the Inquiry, pointedly asked Williamson.

And so yes, this was bitterly predictable. Predictable from an inquiry apparently so unmoved by the sacrifice imposed on our children that it had forgotten to include the word 'children' even once in the initial draft of its terms of reference.

Yet still so bitter as to insist on the proposition that the greatest mass safeguarding failure of our age was not the failure to keep schools open, but a failure to plan for them to close sooner. By doing so, it will set a catastrophic precedent in the pandemic policy playbook for future generations.

The social, educational, health and economic devastation caused by draconian school closures is now beyond doubt. Even five years on, persistent absence from school has doubled, severe absence has tripled; mental health issues in children are twice as prevalent as pre-pandemic.

Indeed, so severe, widespread and in plain sight are the maladies flowing from that decision that, with the possible exception of Lady Hallett and her legal team, it is well nigh impossible to find anyone who now publicly supports mass school closures.

Whilst we can imagine circumstances where closures might still be a necessary and proportionate policy response - for instance a highly infectious pandemic with a high mortality rate for kids - it's no longer controversial to suggest children need better, more robust protection against knee-jerk school closures.

One idea we might have hoped the Inquiry would take seriously is a proposal tabled in the House of Lords in September by Lord Young of Acton; that would make future mass school closures subject to a recurring vote of approval from Parliament, on advice from the Children's Commissioner.

Given that the Inquiry has so far only managed to publish one interim report since it commenced its proceedings in 2022, we must assume we remain years away from seeing its findings for Module 8. And who knows, perhaps a set of proposals for prioritising keeping schools open will be included. But my expectations are lamentably low.

From its tone and tenor, I fear that instead of approaching its task with a "can do" attitude, the inquiry has itself fallen victim to the very same "doom loop of fatalism" which, in Baroness Longfield's words, caused such devastating harm to children in Spring 2020. It is a tragically wasted opportunity, and a great betrayal of our children.

Molly Kingsley is co-founder of parent-led campaign group UsForThem