Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to protect people from BAME backgrounds who have been identified as being in an at-risk group during the covid-19 outbreak; whether lockdown restrictions will be amended for those at-risk groups of people; and what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies on amending lockdown restrictions for those at-risk groups of the Public Health England report, Disparities on the risk and outcomes of covid-19, published on 2 June 2020.

We have all been struck by the conclusions of Public Health England’s report and will continue to help protect those most vulnerable to COVID-19 based on the best possible analysis available to us.

We are determined to get to the bottom of the report’s findings in a proper and scientific way and have already asked the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities, (Kemi Badenoch MP), to take forward work to fill the gaps in our understanding, review existing policies and guidance and amend or develop new policies where needed and where the evidence supports us doing so. The Terms of Reference for that work can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/next-steps-for-work-on-covid-19-disparities-announced