Boris Johnson agrees to meet bereaved Covid families group

Boris Johnson will meet a campaign group representing families bereaved by Covid on Tuesday, after declining to meet them since last year.

The prime minister will host Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice for a private reception in Downing Street, alongside senior officials.

He declined to meet them last year - citing a threat of legal action over an official pandemic inquiry.

The government has since said an official probe will begin next spring.

The meeting comes a week before the group attends the Conservative Party annual conference, which begins in Manchester on Sunday.

The group says it was initially denied permission to attend, before subsequently being told they could after "the news broke in the media".

The families say they will use the meeting to share stories of how their loved ones died, and repeat their calls for a public inquiry to start now.

They have asked for the reception to be held outside, and for social distancing to be maintained.

The group, representing families with relatives who have died with the virus, has been asking for a meeting with Mr Johnson since last year.

In September, he said he would be "happy to meet" them, when their "litigation" against the government had concluded.

The group had written to the government in August, saying it was considering a judicial review of the decision not to hold an immediate public inquiry.

But the group denied that legal action had started - and labelled Mr Johnson's reason for not meeting them a "poor excuse".

In May, Mr Johnson announced a statutory public inquiry into the government's handling of the pandemic would begin in spring 2022.

Group co-founder Jo Goodman said: "It has been over a year since the prime minister first said he would meet us, and in that time over 100,000 people across the country have lost their lives with Covid-19.

"One of the hardest parts of the pandemic for us has been seeing new families join each week with the same pain and grief that we've experienced and distressingly similar stories to our own.

"We first called for a rapid review last summer so that lessons could be learnt from the deaths of our loved ones to protect others, and we can't help but feel that if we'd been listened to then, other lives might have been spared.

"We hope that the prime minister will listen to us tomorrow, and start the process to begin the inquiry immediately, whilst ensuring that the perspective of bereaved families is at its heart.

"Most of all, we hope that by sharing our stories, we can help to protect other families from the suffering and tragedy that we've been through."