Rishi Sunak’s policy decisions during the pandemic were presented to the Covid Inquiry as necessary compromises made under pressure. What was missing from his evidence was any meaningful recognition of the devastating mental health consequences those decisions have had, and continue to have, for the people deliberately excluded from financial support.

For members of ExcludedUK, the damage was not abstract or short term. It was personal, prolonged and in some cases fatal.

ExcludedUK is aware of at least 40 suicides linked to exclusion from Covid support. These deaths were reported by friends and family members who knew the individuals were part of the ExcludedUK community. This figure is almost certainly only a fraction of the true number. Many deaths will never be linked back to exclusion, and many families may never feel able to speak publicly about their loss. Each number represents a person who was pushed beyond endurance by a system that offered nothing when they needed help most.

The impact on loved ones left behind has been profound. Families have spoken of unbearable guilt, anger and trauma. Parents, partners, children and friends have had to live with the knowledge that their loved one was abandoned by the state at the point of greatest need. These are wounds that do not heal simply because the pandemic has ended.

A huge number of ExcludedUK members are still being supported for mental health related issues. Years on, people remain in crisis. Anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and suicidal ideation are still widespread. This is not historical harm. It is ongoing.

Many members continue to lose their homes and businesses as a direct consequence of being excluded. Savings were exhausted long ago. Relationships were strained to breaking point. For some, recovery has never been possible because the financial damage was too deep and too sustained.

For those who felt they had no choice but to take out Bounce Back Loans to survive, the consequences are still hanging around their necks like a noose. These loans were not a safety net. They were debt taken on under duress, often simply to pay rent, buy food or keep a roof over a family’s head. Unlike grants, they must be repaid, with interest, long after the crisis that forced people into borrowing has passed.

This reality stands in stark contrast to the experience of around 90 percent of UK taxpayers, who received Covid financial support that did not have to be paid back. Furlough payments, grants and other schemes were rightly designed as income replacement. For the excluded, support came, if at all, in the form of debt. That disparity continues to shape lives today.

Sunak has repeatedly pointed to the availability of loans as evidence that support was universal. For those living with crushing debt, deteriorating mental health and the knowledge that others were protected while they were sacrificed, this narrative is deeply damaging. It erases lived experience and dismisses the psychological toll of exclusion.

Mental health cannot be separated from policy. When people are told there is no help coming, when they are forced to watch others receive support while they are left with nothing, the message is clear. You do not matter. For some, that message proved lethal!!!

Accountability means acknowledging not only economic outcomes but human consequences. It means recognising that decisions taken at the Treasury desk rippled outward into homes, minds and lives. Until that truth is faced honestly, the harm done to the excluded and their loved ones will remain unaddressed.

ExcludedUK continues to support those still struggling, to remember those who were lost, and to demand that the mental health impact of exclusion is neither minimised nor forgotten.

All media enquiries to admin@excludeduk.org

The full video from the Module 9 Impact Film can be found here: https://youtu.be/IgZZQ2r3Bhs?si=nMbYhlbfteB1e67k