Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the data published by the Office for National Statistics which demonstrates that 19 local authorities in England have recorded excess death rates in 2020 that are more than twice the UK average excess death rates.

We have made no such assessment but we are learning as much as we can, as quickly as we can about this virus, who it affects and how best to keep everyone safe and protect those who may be more vulnerable than others.

We asked Public Health England (PHE) to undertake a rapid review into disparities in deaths from COVID-19 and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch MP) has been tasked with leading the work arising from PHE’s report published on 2 June. The Terms of Reference for that work were published on 4 June.