Deprived Areas

Lord Suri Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

This Government’s approach to reducing low wages is the introduction of the national living wage. We have also extended the national living wage to apply to younger cohorts of people, and we have a longer-term commitment on the level of that national living wage to try to eliminate low pay altogether.

[Lord Suri (Con) [V]]

My Lords, what are the Government doing to address the lower rates of testing and vaccination among underserved communities at the risk of Covid?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My noble friend raises an important point. On testing, we have been piloting alternative delivery models based on identifying the trusted individual for people in underserved communities and enabling them to encourage their members or service users to start testing; that has been incredibly effective. For vaccines, we have a community champion scheme which applies a similar logic, and we are taking vaccinations to places and sites where people will access them and improve take-up rates.