Coronavirus Update

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I strongly agree with the point of view so eloquently expressed by my hon. Friend. It is critical that, as well as tackling coronavirus and the economic consequences of the action that we have had to take, we tackle the deep-rooted health inequalities that have exacerbated this disease and its impact on many people. This is a critical part of the levelling-up agenda. Issues such as obesity in particular clearly have an impact on how badly people are affected by coronavirus, and we need to take action in order to ensure that people get more equal life chances across this country.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Transparency and trust are crucial to any public health crisis, but public health directors still need household data on infections, not just postcode data. Wakefield Council told me this afternoon that it is still not getting the household data on positive tests, even though we have had outbreaks at Forza meat processing factory and at Urban House asylum accommodation. The public also need proper weekly cases information, not just at the local authority level, which itself is hard to get hold of, but also at town level and constituency level. Will the Secretary of State not now publish for everybody across the country that more local data, at constituency or town level, on the weekly cases each week?

[Matt Hancock]

The information that the right hon. Lady has requested is available to directors of public health in upper-tier local authorities, and we are extending that further. In addition, I want to see much more data published as open data, and I have requested that that happens. I am sure it will happen soon, but the truth is that, following a request from directors of public health right across the country, we have extended a huge amount of data to them. Those who have signed data protection agreements in upper-tier local authorities and who have the statutory responsibilities for dealing with this have got the data down to the personal details that she requests.