Covid-19: Poverty

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I can speak for the health dimension. I should emphasise the work of the office for health promotion. Under the Chief Medical Officer, the OHP will deliver proactive, predictive and personalised preventive strategies. We believe that there is a huge opportunity off the back of Covid to really change the health inequalities of the country, and that is what the OHP will be devoted to doing.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, levelling up is a UK-wide ambition and priority; health and public health are devolved responsibilities. Will the Minister undertake to take a good look at how the various parts of the United Kingdom have dealt with problems that they have faced? For example, Wales appears at the moment to be far more successful in rolling out vaccination than England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We should not be too proud to learn from each other in order to overcome some of the deep inequalities that have developed over the past years.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the vaccine race is being contested right across the country, and I take my hats off to all those who are delivering the programme so effectively. We are not too proud to learn from each other. In fact, I pay tribute to, for instance, those in Scotland who have programmes around alcohol and drug use, which are pioneering on a worldwide level. We have to work on this all together, and we will absolutely use the best case studies to apply the best programmes on a countrywide basis.