Covid-19: Disparate Impact
Debate between Viscount Waverley and Baroness Berridge(4 years ago)
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Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, I hope that I have been clear that what is glaringly obvious is the disparities. The answer to the next question, which is why there are those disparities, is not so glaringly obvious, and we must be careful not to jump to conclusions. As I said, they are partly explained by comorbidities—pre-existing health conditions—but that does not explain them fully. Some of them are explained by socioeconomic and geographical factors. That is why we have issued guidance on multigenerational households and areas of population density where people cannot socially distance properly. However, that does not fully explain the picture. For instance, a British black African man is 2.5 times more likely to die of Covid, but a British black Caribbean man is only 1.7 times more likely to die of Covid. Therefore, unfortunately, there are still gaps in understanding, not of the fact that there are disparities but of what is causing them. Unless we know that, we cannot address them.
Viscount Waverley (CB) [V]
My Lords, I express my compliments to the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence. She is to be thanked. Healing, respect and reconciliation are needed for a divided kingdom of nations. Will the Government take the initiative and establish a root-and-branch royal commission on an integral strategy fit for a caring nation to address systemic failures of structural discrimination, covering the health service, race and ethnicity, housing, education, skills and training as a starter? Fast-tracking this is a matter of priority and appropriate for consideration to bring forward in the upcoming Queen’s Speech, as it would deliver dividends many times over. On a practical measure, since the wearing of masks is necessary and mandatory, will the Government care to consider distributing masks and hand gel at no charge as a practical gesture in what could become a situation of real need?
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount. It might not be a royal commission, but the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities has been set up by the Government, building on the Race Disparity Unit. It is reviewing inequality in the UK, focusing on areas such as poverty, education, employment, health and the criminal justice system. Again, we know that there are disparities, and we want to know why and what the causes are. If the noble Viscount would like to submit evidence, there is a call for evidence at the moment. I have not read of any government policy on distributing hand gel and so forth, but there has been most impressive work in transport interchanges and so on, and a lot of institutions, including Parliament, have taken it upon themselves to make those kinds of precautionary measures available.
Human Rights: Future Trade
Debate between Viscount Waverley and Baroness Berridge
Baroness Berridge
I agree with the noble Lord that an apology is not enough. There has been an apology, but we must await the outcome of the independent review within the department to know fully how this happened and whether any permanent changes to the systems need to be taken going forward. I have outlined the interim changes that have been made.
In relation to the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, I have hopefully outlined that the GSP system will be coming over and there is a big “Yes” for the eight countries.
Baroness Berridge
Yes, the GSP+ eight. There is also the GSP, which will be transferring into UK law. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, that we intend to use all the levers at our disposal. I am grateful for the outline and the positivity from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, in relation to the role of business. One can see from what happened, for instance, with workers in Bangladesh that companies care about their supply chains and they are important to them. There have been changes for workers in Bangladesh. I will have to write to the noble Lord, as I do not have the particular information about the trade Bill at the moment. I do not know whether it will be in the Queen’s Speech and what stage it is at, but I will certainly make sure that he is informed about that going forward.
It is, I repeat, a pleasure and an honour to have this as my first debate as Minister. I assure your Lordships’ House that the Government are considering all options as to how best to advance the cause of environmental, social and human rights matters in our post-Brexit independent trade policy. Today’s debate has made a valuable contribution. The UK has long supported the promotion of democracy, the rule of law and human rights and I can state categorically that this will continue as we leave the EU. The Government will not pursue trade at the expense of human rights; they can and should be complementary. More trade should not and will not come at the expense of workers’ human rights or the growth of the least developed countries. The Government’s objective is to ensure that growth and trade, sustainable development and human rights advance hand in hand. It is right that we explore all available policy levers to advance that. I once again thank noble Lords for their contributions to today’s debate.