Public Health England Review: Covid-19 Disparities

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In a time of crisis and great worry for many of us, it has been heartening to see different communities working together hand in hand and people acknowledging the huge contributions people from BME backgrounds have made to this country? As I have said, however, we must take the right action; we must not rush into doing the things people are asking for if it turns out they are the wrong steps to take but look right. It is not about optics; it is about doing the right thing, and that is why we are not rushing. We will have a proper programme. We will look at all the studies that have come out, not just the Public Health England one, and produce an appropriate set of recommendations that have the confidence of various communities.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

The PHE report has no third-party submissions. Where are the missing submissions and will the Minister place them in the House of Commons Library? The Government have a reputation for whitewashing reports and hiding from the consequences of structural racism. The Minister says she is not going to rush. In 2016, the Conservative Prime Minister said she would tackle the burning injustices in society. What happened? Where is the social injustice office that was promised in 2016? There is not rushing, and then there is taking your time and avoiding the issue. The Windrush report was delayed and edited, and some parts were deleted. That is a worrying trend of this Government. The PHE report essentially says that there is nothing internal about why black, Asian and minority ethnic people are dying of covid at twice the rate of their white counterparts. There is nothing internal. That means that it is external, and it is accelerated by this Government.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I utterly reject what the hon. Lady has said. With permission, Mr Speaker, I think I need to clarify some confusion that seems to have arisen. The Government commissioned a review to analyse how different factors can impact on people’s health outcomes from covid-19. That is what was published this week. Separately, PHE has been engaging with a significant number of individuals and organisations within the BAME community over the past couple of months to hear their views. That was not a part of this. A lot of people think that that is something that should have been in the report. We will be building on, and expanding on, that engagement as we take this work forward, but that is different from the report that we have commissioned.