9. Opening Statement by Ms Spearing

Ms Spearing: My Lady, good afternoon. I represent the UK Health Security Agency. Firstly, there are no written submissions from those whom I represent and no discourtesy is intended by that. I certainly only have in fact three short points and one response to a submission that my clients would wish to raise.

The first is that, like many us who appear before you today, the UK Health Security Agency are absolutely committed to assisting you with this very challenging process. The second is that we will do all we can in order to facilitate and respond, and we have been thus far working well with all of those parties who have been communicating with the agency.

The third is in fact important, that we do support the submissions that counsel to the Inquiry Mr Keith has already represented, and I don’t repeat those. We support and endorse the careful consideration that he has given in dialogue with many of the Core Participants about the challenges that this Inquiry will present.

Finally, it’s a response to a submission, and that is in relation to the importance which you have already raised of good dialogue, of collaborative and cohesive conversations in order to be able to respond whether that be to the Rule 9 disclosure requests, to the practicalities of challenges that this very novel Inquiry will present to many of the participants, the position statements which have been raised by many.

My Lady, we ask that you bear in mind the challenges that many of the Core Participants will have where multiple individuals may have moved between agencies, may be working in current organisations with status, who may have been linked to Core Participants where such boundaries may in fact hinder access, or perhaps legal advice where those firm position statements are sought which then may prevent the expeditious exploration of facts and information to be importantly provided to your team.

So those are all of our submissions and everything that I wish to say. Thank you very much.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed. Mr Keith, do you have any observations by way of response?