Just before Andy Burnham jetted off to the sun this week, his junior minister for victims Alex Davies-Jones announced that he might be willing to set up a new public inquiry into the activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Mohammed al-Fayed. And matters could go further: there was, for example, mention of the allegedly dubious behaviour of David Sullivan, the owner of West Ham FC – something Sullivan denies.
The stimulus for this move, which has the air of a proposal intended to be plausibly deniable if the going gets rough, comes from an internal Labour document produced by campaigners on violence against women and girls. This was artfully bounced on Burnham when he was packing up for the summer recess: hence the announcement.
At first sight, all this sounds like sweet reasonableness. In fact it is a doubtful idea, but nevertheless one that indirectly tells us something about the Burnham style of government.
We don’t need this inquiry – as Andy Burnham, who is no fool, probably realises
Why not hold an inquiry? To begin with, there is the matter of cost. The direct expense to the taxpayer of an inquiry nearly always runs into eight figures, and that is without the extra hidden costs such as diverting civil service and other governmental time. The Covid inquiry, for example, has so far cost £31 million and counting; the Post Office inquiry a similar sum. Expenditures on seriously high-profile investigations have run vastly higher than that. In the financial year 2023/24, the total expenditure by government on continuing inquiries was something over £130 million. If the Prime Minister thinks he has found a cheap way to buy off political pressure, he is wrong.
