Covid-19 Response

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

This is clearly urgent work to disentangle the different factors that cause the disparities evident in the data in the report published today. The Equalities Minister will be leading that work, working with Public Health England and others, to get to the bottom of that as quickly as possible.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

My constituency of Luton South is super-diverse, with a large BAME population, and it has significant pockets of deprivation. Given those risks, what do I say to my constituents who tell me they simply do not believe that it is safe to relax shielding, given the Government’s confused messages and apparent endorsement of breaches of public health guidance, with the lack of action taken over Dominic Cummings?

[Matt Hancock]

That is not an appropriate way to characterise the approach we are taking, because when it comes to people who are shielding, we have recommended that people shield for their own protection, but the clinical advice says that it is safe for people to go outside, because the incidence of disease is now lower than when we brought in the shielding policy, and I think—well, I know—that many of the shielded are so pleased to be able just to go outside. It has had a huge impact on them, when they have given up a great sacrifice.