Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to develop a national strategy for tackling health inequalities in England as part of recovering from the effects of covid-19.

The Government remains committed to levelling up and spreading opportunity around this country – this will be an important part of the economic and social recovery from this pandemic.

The recent review published on 2 June 2020 by Public Health England, ‘Disparities in the risk and outcomes of COVID-19’, illustrates that some people are significantly more vulnerable to COVID-19.

We are looking very closely at the health inequalities aspects of this report as part of the work that is being led by the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch MP) to further understand the impacts.