Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment the Government has made of the effect of the use of the term Indian variant to refer to a variant of covid-19 on levels of (a) racism and (b) hate crime towards Indians and people of Indian heritage in the UK.

The World Health Organisation on 31^st May announced a new naming system for SARS-CoV-2 variants, with a view to providing easy-to-pronounce, non-stigmatising labels, such as Delta Variant, and Public Health England has incorporated this into our own naming system.

We have one of the strongest legislative frameworks in the world to protect communities from hostility, violence and bigotry, and racism will continue to be tackled wherever it is found.