Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to investigate excess deaths among males aged 15 to 19 in response to the ONS' finding that there had been a statistically significant increase in that number from 1 May to 24 December 2021.

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, in collaboration with the Office for National Statistics (ONS), investigated excess deaths in young people in 2021. On 22 March 2022, the ONS published ‘COVID-19 vaccination and mortality in young people during the coronavirus pandemic’, which reviewed the observation that more deaths were registered in England in 2021 for young people, compared with the average for the five years preceding the pandemic. The report is available at the following link:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/articles/covid19vaccinationandmortalityinyoungpeopleduringthecoronaviruspandemic/2022-03-22

The analysis confirmed more deaths were registered in young people aged 15 to 29 years old in England in 2021 than the average number registered in 2015 to 2019. There were 113 excess deaths in males and 66 excess deaths in females this age group in 2021. For males aged 15 to 19 years old, there were 72 excess deaths in 2021, compared with the average for 2015 to 2019. There is no evidence that these excess deaths were linked to COVID-19 vaccination and there was no increase in registrations of cardiac-related deaths. The excess death registrations in 2021 in those aged 15 to 29 years old were instead largely due to deaths from external causes and COVID-19.

The increase in death registrations in 2021 followed a fall in 2020. It is likely that the excess in 2021 was influenced by the known disruption to the operation of coroners’ courts, particularly during spring 2020. For deaths of people aged 15 to 29 years old from all causes registered in 2021, 32% occurred in 2020. For this reason, the report also looked at deaths by the year in which they occurred. Deaths which occurred in 2020 increased for some causes, including accidental poisonings for males aged 15 to 24 years old. For deaths which occurred in 2021, this information is not yet available.