Talk:List of public inquiries in the United Kingdom

List of examples
Unless we have a full list of all qualifying inquiries, we need an objective way of selecting what is included and what is excluded from the list. For 'list' articles, there is guidance on this at WP:LISTCRITERIA.

I think we need to describe the criteria somewhere to avoid cherry-picking by editors of their 'favourites'. -- DeFacto (talk). 06:49, 25 July 2022 (UTC)


 * "List of some public inquiries in the UK":
 * On 22 July 2022, a large section (17,397 bytes) of the Public inquiries article, was removed by User:DeFacto along with the subheading, references and notes. The following reasons were provided in the edit summary: "per WP:UNDUE in this general and global context article, and unsourced as a notable list anyway." I then tried to address the "general and global context" aspect by migrating the entire section relating to UK public inquires to its own new article Public inquiries in the United Kingdom in order to preserve the contributions of other editors. Then on 25 July 2022, User:DeFacto deleted the "List of some public inquiries in the UK:" again, this time removing 24,573 bytes. The reasons are given above, however, I believe it's unfair to suggest that "cherry-picking by editors of their 'favourite' inquiries has taken place. In reality, the list would have simply grown organically as and when editors added an inquiry, but I doubt very much that there would have been any agenda involved.


 * The normal protocol would be to attempt to improve the list to make it less biased rather than deleting all of the entries that are well sourced and might be salvageable.
 * There was nothing stopping User:DeFacto from adding any public inquiries which they felt had been left out of the list, or alternatively, removing the entries they thought were not sufficiently notable, on a cases by case basis.
 * It wasn't necessary to remove the entire list for the second time without first attempting to improve it or opening a proper discussion on the Talk page.
 * I would have to ask User:DeFacto which inquiries they feel have been left out? Can they suggest some that could be added in order to bring better balance to the list? I would be surprised if it the list was ever intended to be exhaustive.
 * The list is reasonably comprehensive. It spans 1847 to the present day and includes inquiries which relate to the constituent parts of the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland).
 * The main issue with the list was that the older inquiries were largely unreferenced. The more recent inquires, particularly from about 2009, had better referencing.
 * The most concerning part for me is that in deleting the list outright, as many as 5 ongoing inquiries have been removed, all of which were thoroughly sourced. These inquires (the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, the Infected Blood Inquiry, the Manchester Arena Inquiry and the Covid-19 Inquiry) are current and as such will be of significant interest to thousands of people.
 * As many as 104 editors have contributed to the Public Inquiry page. I would invite all of you to contribute to this discussion and help decide what should be done with the list of public inquires in the United Kingdom. Thank you. SpookiePuppy (talk) 19:28, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Per WP:DEMOLISH, I have reverted @DeFacto's removal of the list. It's a work-in-progress, and discussion on inclusion criteria can take place in parallel with development of the list.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 19:53, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @BrownHairedGirl, I think that BRD supports the removal of newly boldly added content, such as this, pending a consensus on it, and especially when it is contentious content such as this. We first need to agree the inclusion criteria, then add list content. -- DeFacto (talk). 07:33, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @DeFacto: I disagree, strongly. The existence of the list helps to inform a discussion on inclusion criteria, and I note that you have offered neither general criticism of the list items nor criticism of any specific items.
 * Contentious is a strange way to describe a list to which nobody, not even yourself, has made any specific objection.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 08:06, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @BrownHairedGirl, that is your prerogative, but I'd prefer agreement up front. You say I "have offered neither general criticism of the list items nor criticism of any specific items". That is because I haven't read them, and do not have a view on them individually, other than that I believe the inclusion of each of them needs to comply with WP:SYNTH/WP:OR/WP:DUE. In my experience, lists of potentially politically sensitive events are always 'contentious'. -- DeFacto (talk). 08:22, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @DeFacto: this is not a vague list of scandal or controversies. While the subjects and outcome of public inquiries may be contentious, I don't see much scope for contention in the fact of their existence.
 * If you have examples of cases or types of cases where you think that inclusion might be contentious, then please set out your concerns. But so far, this all feels like excessive caution, and rather heavy-handed.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:03, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @BrownHairedGirl, many public enquiries exist simply because of scandal and/or controversy. This is why we need inclusion criteria to be established before examples are added willy-nilly. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:00, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @DeFacto: you miss my point. Defining what is a scandal or a controversy can indeed be fuzzy. But most scandals and controversies do not lead to a public inquiry, and defining what is a public inquiry is much more simple.
 * The article now has the beginnings of criteria, and a growing list of entries. Unless you can point to some actual problems of scope or content, then it seems to me that your objections are just unfocused alarmism.
 * If you have something to contribute to the criteria, then I hope you make that contribution. But please, do drop this vague alarmism.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 10:11, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @BrownHairedGirl, and, funnily enough. you seem to have missed my point too. Sure, not all scandals lead to a public inquiry, and not all public inquiries are related to scandals, but this isn't about that. It's about how to avoid SYNTH in selecting which public inquiries to include in the list of examples, and what level of sourcing they need to be of due weight. Nothing more. Without a well defined and subjective set of 'rules', anyone can legitimately add any public inquiry they personally want to include, and then the disputes about whether to keep it, or not, begin. -- DeFacto (talk). 14:22, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @DeFacto: that makes your position clearer. You appear to think that there is some limitless pool of public inquiries, from which editors could draw indefinitely.
 * However, that is not the case.
 * See https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/public-inquiries : "69 public inquiries launched between 1990 and 2017, compared with a mere 19 in the previous 30 years".
 * So the number is finite, and not huge. 88 inquiries in 60 years is very manageable, so we can have a complete list.  No need for any selectivity or subjectivity or WP:SYN or WP:OR.
 * It would be very helpful if you would do some homework before wasting the time and energy of other editors by posting away about your unfounded fears, and especially before removing work-in-progress.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 20:58, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @BrownHairedGirl, I suspect you are underestimating the number. But, regardless of that, I still think each needs to be given due weight by secondary sources, and not just added willy-nilly on the whim of an editor, leaving WP:V as a problem for other editors to solve. Perhaps we could move the unreferenced examples to, and add speculative unreferenced examples to, a section in the talkpage, pending a retrospective source search.
 * And please don't lecture me here about how you think I am using, or should use, this talkpage. The point of the talkpage is to discuss article content, and particularly how it can be improved, and that is exactly what I was using it for. How you, or other editors, spend time is up to you, and them, and not me. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:23, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @DeFacto: I provided a reliable source for the number, and actualy quoted the relevant passage.
 * Unless you have some reliable source to support a challenge to that number, then your "suspicion" is just a figment of your imagination: more timewasting nonsense.
 * This talk page is indeed to discuss article content. It is not a place to air unevidenced denialism about reliable sources, and your decision to do so is disruptive.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 10:43, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @BrownHairedGirl, that source only went back as far as 1990, and as far as I know, public inquiries were being conducted for at least 150 years before that. I intend to concentrate on discussing the article content, and will not comment on your unnecessary and perverse characterisation of my thoughts and fears about it. -- DeFacto (talk). 11:40, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @DeFacto: you are demonstrably wrong. That source went back to 1960:  "69 public inquiries launched between 1990 and 2017, compared with a mere 19 in the previous 30 years".  30 years before 1990 is 1960.
 * Yes, public inquiries were being conducted for at least 150 years before that. But so far you provided no sources to support your belief that the number of public inquiries is unclear.
 * Sadly, you are not discussing the article content. You are in fact discussing your own unevidenced speculation, and misreading very simple data in the sources.  That is disruptive.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 11:48, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes I carelessly misread it, but the point still stands, there is probably more than a 120 years-worth, and possibly more than 120 years-worth of public inquiries uncounted, and therefore the number of them is unknown. -- DeFacto (talk). 14:03, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @SpookiePuppy, this talkpage is for this article alone, and what happens in other articles is irrelevant here. When I first edited this article, it had only been edited to by two users: there were 44 edits by you, and 2 by . You boldly created the article and added content, including the table of examples, on 22 July. On 25 July I reverted just the table, with my reasoning in the edit summary suggesting you come to the talkpage to discuss it, and I created this thread here to do so. Per WP:BRD I had expected the discussion to take place before the table was restored, but the opposite seems to have happened, and you have invited dozens of, so far, uninvolved (in this article) editors, apparently selected because they had contributed to a similar table in another article. I suggest reading WP:CANVASSING. -- DeFacto (talk). 07:30, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't accept that what happens in other articles and on other talk pages is irrelevant. There can be relevant considerations, particularly if the pages are linked, which they are in this case. The part of the Public Inquiries article that dealt with the United Kingdom (including the list), is now hosted on this page. I have read WP:CANVASSING and I do not believe this is what I have done, it wasn't indiscriminate spamming or messaging of uninvolved editors. My intention in using the "reply to" template was to notify the 104 involved editors who had made edits, some of them substantial, to the original Public inquiries article and more specifically, to the section containing the list which you deleted from that page. I painstakingly reviewed the edit history to identify 104 editors in order to make them aware of this discussion and to invite them to help decide what should be done with the list of public inquires in the United Kingdom, I did not give any kind of steer to them, I only wanted to broaden the participation to more fully achieve consensus from editors who had a material interest in the UK inquiries list. As you will have realised, I imported the code to reproduce the list as it was when you deleted it and this was done using the "content copied from" wording to acknowledge the source of the material. I moved the list to a new page for several reasons: 1. to preserve the list; 2. to address the "general and global context article" aspect from your edit summary on deletion; 3. to be in keeping with having a separate main article for inquiries relating to a certain country, as was already the case with Public inquiries in the Republic of Ireland. With hindsight, I regret transferring the UK list to a new page, as it would have been better to start the discussion on the Talk page of the Public inquiries article and then the editing history of the list would have been preserved. SpookiePuppy (talk) 02:35, 27 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Please see the above discussion regarding the removal of "List of some public inquiries in the UK". SpookiePuppy (talk) 19:31, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Please see the above discussion regarding the removal of "List of some public inquiries in the UK". SpookiePuppy (talk) 19:32, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The only fair list would be List of public inquiries in the United Kingdom 1990 to 2000, List of public inquiries in the United Kingdom 2000 to 2010 etc. List of ongoing public inquiries in the United Kingdom would cover any for our vital public interest service. This link gives some sense of how far we have to go in expanding the intro etc. The list of royal commissions is still pretty raw. No Swan So Fine (talk) 20:57, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm having a go at improving the article (see User:Seth Whales/sandbox. It's still a bit of a mess at the moment as I'm trying to merge my article with the existing one). I'm using the following sources (amongst others):


 * I'm sure we can get a half decent article out of it, that other editors can also improve upon too. Seth Whales   talk  03:50, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm sure we can get a half decent article out of it, that other editors can also improve upon too. Seth Whales   talk  03:50, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm sure we can get a half decent article out of it, that other editors can also improve upon too. Seth Whales   talk  03:50, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm sure we can get a half decent article out of it, that other editors can also improve upon too. Seth Whales   talk  03:50, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm sure we can get a half decent article out of it, that other editors can also improve upon too. Seth Whales   talk  03:50, 26 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I am not interested in this canvassing. Matthew hk (talk) 04:59, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria
To avoid relying on personal WP:SYNTH/WP:OR to select examples, we need a subjective set of criteria. Two possibilities that spring to mind are: Comments? -- DeFacto (talk). 07:46, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) Only include examples which are listed as examples in reliable sources which are primarily discussing public inquiries, and use it to support their inclusion. That is, do not rely on an editor to decide for themselves what is a good example - that is WP:SYNTH.
 * 2) Use WP:LISTCRITERIA, which recommends ways to select entries for list articles, an appropriate suggestion there is that every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia
 * Alternatively just list the important instances (as defined by adequate sourcing) and all the instances that have an article. GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:48, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think we should list every public enquiry. That's our role as historians. I'm not sure another publicly accessible list exists. No Swan So Fine (talk) 20:43, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. Let's hope secondary source coverage will be enough to provide due weight for them all. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:13, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with No Swan So Fine's suggestion of listing every public inquiry. Regarding User:DeFacto's point 2 above (using WP:LISTCRITERIA), I would be very concerned if this was implemented as two of the ongoing inquiries would most likely end up being removed for not having their own blue-link articles (i.e. non-redirect articles on the English Wikipedia). There should be no doubt that these two inquiries: the Infected Blood Inquiry and the Manchester Arena Inquiry are sufficiently notable to be included in this list. Note that both these inquiries are included in one of the above official lists cited by User:Seth Whales. However, The Infected Blood Inquiry is now a redirect to Contaminated blood scandal in the United Kingdom which stems back to September 2017, apparently from an attempt to create the article: Contaminated Blood Scandal Inquiry almost 5 years ago. The most likely reason that article's content was merged into Contaminated blood scandal in the United Kingdom was that a dedicated article on the inquiry was premature in 2017. SpookiePuppy (talk) 03:37, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd say that if they can be given due weight with secondary sources, and would pass the WP:GNG test, and not just that they appear on an official list, that then they could be included. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:33, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a finite list of a relatively small number of major events in public administration. Per WP:NLIST "a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines".  This list meet that test.
 * Per WP:CSC, it is permissible to create "Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group".
 * So I see no policy basis for @DeFacto's demand that the list include only public inquiries which pass WP:GNG. In practice, nearly all entries will pass that test, but it would be disruptive to have DeFacto wasting editors' time by challenging individual entries just because the editor who adds an entry has yet not trawled the contemporary newspaper archives.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 10:54, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Sure it's a finite list, but we do not know how long it is, as far as I can tell. This article isn't a stand-alone list article, it is an article about a process, and currently contains four lists of examples, and each entry surely needs to satisfy WP:V. GNG is only a suggested possibility that we could consider, and by no means a "demand". But why would we want to look for loopholes in policy, to allow the inclusion of unsourced and unverifiable content? Surely our goal should be to provide a robust article. WP:ONUS does not characterise challenging unsourced content as "wasting editors' time", it says the onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. -- DeFacto (talk). 14:15, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

For goodness sake, @DeFacto, please stop posting this nonsense. Your contributions on this are a series of straw men, which indicate ether bad faith or poor comprehension of the issues. Nobody is looking for loopholes in policy and nobody is seeking to allow the inclusion of unsourced and unverifiable content. That suggestion is a unjustifiable slur on other editors, and you should have the manners to withdraw it. Every entry should of course be sourced, but that source can be a list entry in a reliable source. If you want to do something constructive, please do some actual research instead of wasting everyone's time misrepresenting other editors and dreaming up fantasies about the data set. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:16, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No nonsense, no straw men, no slurs, and no bad faith on my part, just an endevour to ensure a worthy article. Following your comments though, I'm no so sure if you are demonstrating good faith.
 * Each entry needs a source, of course, and for the inquiry metadata (title, chair, dates) a minimal reliable source will do. But any added commentry, such as the ones I replaced on the first and last entries, needs to be neutral and robustly sourced and devoid of synth, pov, and editorialisation. -- DeFacto (talk). 07:15, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The straw man is your asking But why would we want to look for loopholes in policy, to allow the inclusion of unsourced and unverifiable content?. Nobody has advocated either of those.
 * Your decision to question my good faith for challenging that straw man is nasty conduct. Please stop this, and conduct yourself with some civility.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:35, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @BrownHairedGirl, no, that was a serious question. You appeared to be trying to excuse poor WP:V aherence by looking for, err, loopholes in the policies.
 * And please try not to look for ways to attack the person, rather concentrate on reaching agreement as to how we can create an article to be proud of. One that unambiguously complies with the spirit of the policies, and not just with the weaked, and Wikilawered to its bare minimum, letter of the policies.
 * Let's now try and stop this bickering shall we, and get on with something more rewarding, eh? I'm sure we both want the same thing really, and I'm sure if we were sat in the same room discussing it, rather than trying to squabble by post, we wouldn't be rubbing each other up the wrong way like this. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:21, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @DeFacto, that was not a serious question. It was a fabrication, in which you attributed to others a view which they had not expressed.
 * And you still haven't changed your tune. Your latest post falsely claim that I am wikilawyering to the bare minimum, letter of the policies.  I did no such thing, and your allegation of such bad faith is contemptible.
 * If you want a serious discussion, stop fabricating nonsense and stop misrepresenting other editors.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:45, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @BrownHairedGirl, more misrepresentation and no apparent will to compromise, so I'll leave it there for now. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:31, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * For goodness sake, this is toxic. DeFacto repeatedly creates straw men, and then complains of being misrepresented.
 * No, I will not in any way compromise with the fantasies and straw men invented by an editor who cannot even correctly parse the time period described in a single sentence (and who has neither apologised for or retracted their error), and who describes following the guidelines as "wikilawyering".
 * I have more than enough of this toxic nonsense, so I will unwatch this page and withdraw from the discussion. Please, nobody ping me back to it: I don't want to waste time and energy engaging with this sort of game-playing, because I find that trying to counter such folly severely disrupts my enjoyment of Wikipedia.
 * I note that nobody else has supported DeFacto's disruptive nonsense, while I have had a flurry of thanks for my comments here. If DeFactos's disruption resumes, I suggest escalating to dispute resolution processes.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 17:55, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Lead too long?
@Seth Whales: Since the lead has been tagged as being too long, I have been experimenting with a reorganisation of the lead in my sandbox. I've mainly moved the bulleted lists out of the lead and tried to reorganise the remaining material. I've tried not to change anything, but the inclusion of statutory and non-statutory in the first paragraph had to be altered the most, so in my sandbox, the last line of the first paragraph has become: Statutory inquiries can be held as subject-specific public inquiries, however most are now held under the Inquiries Act 2005 which repealed the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921. Although I have created a new section (with a subheading), this could be handled differently, but I think this could go somewhere toward shortening the lead. I am happy to make the adjustments, unless you want to do it, or something different? SpookiePuppy (talk) 20:07, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

@SpookiePuppy: I'm very happy for you to go ahead with any changes that you feel that are required. Go for it, like I did on my edit. Seth Whales  talk  06:39, 15 August 2022 (UTC)


 * As the person who tagged this lead for being too long, this sounds like a good idea (and the sandbox is looking good!) QueenofBithynia (talk) 09:26, 15 August 2022 (UTC)


 * That's great, and thanks for the support. I'll start making the changes to the lead section with a series of edits with the objective of replicating what I have in my sandbox. SpookiePuppy (talk) 17:04, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ I've reorganised the lead over a series of edits. It should now be identical to what I proposed in my sandbox. I've also removed the "Lead too long" hatnote. SpookiePuppy (talk) 17:48, 15 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @SpookiePuppy: Thank you.

Rethink/Cleanup?
This wiki article needs to be reconsidered as defining it a list does not seem appropriate given recent non-list edits. Instead, consideration should be given to changing this to a general article about UK public inquiries or splitting it.

My argument here is that the current article is moving away from what was a list with a brief background to now containing a significant description (and the laws/regulations) of the types of public inquiries in the UK - especially on local public inquiries. I do not have anything against this expansion, as I believe it is informs the public in much more detail, but I do believe that the entire page could be redesigned or split - with a new article on public inquiries in the UK with the other being just the list.

There are many reasons that there should be more detail on UK public inquiries apart from adding to the list. First, public inquiries have a long history in the UK and are an engrained part of UK administrative law; meaning that they are quite unique to public inquiries in general. There are many books and documents that lay out the procedures and rules that inquiries should follow which I think would be useful to provide more detail about.

Secondly, I believe it would be useful to expand more on the different types of public inquiries - explaining more about what each type does, what they are typically used for, and more about the laws (or royal prerogatives) behind them.

Additionally, I believe that we need to consider what we define as a public inquiry for the purposes of this article as literature (academic and political) and the law tends to conflict on the definition of inquiries. Some literature argues that Jamieson and Middleton Inquests (special types of coroner inquests) qualify as public inquiries, some believe that "public inquiries" refer to only national-level inquiries etc.

Finally, I feel that we also need to consider a clean-up or rewrite as I believe parts of the article are either ambiguous/confusing or list or come across as too technical (particularly with the number of laws mentioned that don't really provide any value to the article; they have largely been inserted because they connected to inquiries but no summary of those laws are provided).

There are other reasons, albeit more minor. There is also a lot of literature on UK public inquiries that I believe could be useful to include to improve the diversity of the existing references.

I'd love to see what other contributors think of this idea CubeOfLettuce (talk) 20:47, 25 February 2024 (UTC)


 * My pre-emptive apologies for any convention or rule inadvertently broken in this talk section! CubeOfLettuce (talk) 20:47, 25 February 2024 (UTC)