Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the disproportionate effect of covid-19 on Black, Asian and ethnic minority communities, whether he plans to collect ethnicity data on people who are vaccinated against covid-19; and what his Department's reasons are for that data collection decision.

Data on a patient’s ethnicity is recorded on the National Immunisation Management System and on a patient’s general practitioner record at the point of vaccination. There is clear evidence that certain black, Asian and minority ethnic groups have higher rates of infection and higher rates of serious disease, morbidity and mortality. Whilst there is no strong evidence that ethnicity is the sole explanation for this, it is important to capture ethnicity data to understand the level of uptake in different groups.