Public Health England Review: Covid-19 Disparities

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

Yes, absolutely. We will look very closely at the health inequalities aspects of the report. That is part of the work that I am going to be carrying forward.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) for what he has just said, because it is what I was about to say—although I am not going to sit down just yet, if that is all right. It is a simple fact that my constituency, the Rhondda, has one of the highest death rates per 100,000 head of population in the country, and therefore in the world. Being poor is certainly an early death sentence—by some 20 years compared with richer parts of the country—and that is because it is the people who are subsisting on poor wages, few hours and unsafe labour in difficult working conditions, without proper protection, with miserly benefits, with statutory sick pay that does not enable people to put food on the table, relying on food banks, who are dying. Surely, one lesson that we must learn from coronavirus is that we must pay our key workers properly so that they can put food on the table and not rely on food banks.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I do not think anyone in the House can disagree with what the hon. Gentleman just said, and I do agree with him. We are putting forward policies to address some of these things. We are looking at some things in the short term that relate specifically to coronavirus, and he and I can have conversations about medium to long-term interventions in future.