Coronavirus

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Research from Harvard and Queen Mary University clearly shows a dramatic increase in the level of deaths and infections from covid-19 in higher pollution areas. Given that BAME communities tend to live in higher pollution areas, will the Secretary of State accept that this is a major factor in their disproportionate death rate? What is he doing with colleagues to ensure that we have low pollution levels as we come out of covid? Will he meet me to consider proposals from scientists, businesses, academics and local authorities, published by the all-party parliamentary group on air pollution, on a strategy for coming out of lockdown with low air pollution to reduce death and infection rates?

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman—he is my hon. Friend when it comes to air pollution—and I share a passion for clean air. He is right about deaths being correlated with areas of high air pollution. We are looking at the reasons behind the disproportionate number of BAME deaths, and we will take air pollution into account in that work. On the final point, it is a bit like an earlier question asked by one of my hon. Friends from a completely different angle—some things have got better in this crisis. Overall, of course, the crisis has been terrible, but some things have got better. One is air pollution. Let us cling on to that and redouble our efforts to keep clean air for the future