Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the reasons why covid-19 disproportionately affects people from BAME communities; and what steps he is taking to mitigate those effects.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch MP) is reviewing the findings from Public Health England’s reports to better understand the drivers behind the disparities and the relationships between the different risk factors. Her work will help us to improve understanding of the virus and who it affects so we can build on the existing action we are taking to tackle health inequalities. This includes our childhood obesity plan, NHS health checks, our tobacco control plan and diabetes prevention programme.

In addition, the NHS Long Term Plan commits all major national programmes and every local area across England to set out specific measurable goals and mechanisms by which they will contribute to narrowing health inequalities over the next five and ten years.