Maria Miller
Main Page: Maria Miller (Conservative - Basingstoke)Department Debates - View all Maria Miller's debates with the HM Treasury
Covid-19: Ethnic Minority Disparities
Maria Miller Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Kemi Badenoch
With regard to the support that the Government are providing to those who have no recourse to public funds, many of the wide-ranging covid-19 measures that the Government have put in place are available to migrants with no recourse to public funds, such as the coronavirus job retention scheme, the self-employment income support scheme and support allowances that are not classed as public funds. In addition, we temporarily extended free school meals to include some groups who have no recourse to public funds. As I have said to the hon. Lady’s Scottish National party colleagues, and probably to her as well, it is really important that we do not conflate ethnic minorities with recent migrants; they are two completely distinct groups and it is wrong to mix them up in this way. We are ensuring that we are providing support to those who are most vulnerable and who need it most.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con) [V]
I welcome my hon. Friend’s recent report and all that she is doing. Will she join me in recognising the role of local community leadership in addressing these differences in vaccine take-up? For instance, in my own community, Grace Powell from Basingstoke Caribbean Society, Kishor Patel from Basingstoke Hindu Society and Poonam Gurung from Basingstoke Nepalese Community are all publicly advocating vaccination as the best way to keep the whole community safe.
Kemi Badenoch
My right hon. Friend raises a very good point. I congratulate all of her constituents who are doing important work in the community by raising awareness of what is happening with covid-19, and ensuring that people have access to the best advice and guidance. It is critical that we continue to support those community champions. That is one of the reasons that we are funding the community champions scheme, which ensures that we improve the reach of official public health guidance and other messaging or communications about the virus into those hard-to-reach areas.