Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, with reference to Public Health England's report, Beyond the data: understanding the impact of covid-19 on BAME groups, published June 2020, what plans he has to to implement the recommendations on reducing the risk to black Asian Minority Ethnic, BAME, people catching and dying of covid-19.

On 4 June the Government announced its next steps following the Public Health England (PHE) Report, ‘Disparities in the risk and outcomes of COVID-19’, which was published on 2 June.

PHE also engaged with a significant number of individuals and organisations within the BAME community to hear their views about the impact of COVID-19. This work informed a separate report, ‘Beyond the Data: understanding the impact of COVID-19 on BAME groups’, which was published on 16 June 2020.

Many of the recommendations from the second report are already in train. For example, NHS Employers has published – and continues to update – robust occupational risk assessment tools; and the Race Disparity Unit continues to work to with Covid teams across Departments to improve communications, outreach and engagement with ethnic minority communities. Furthermore, many of the recommendations are being taken forward through the terms of reference published on 4 June. This includes steps to assess and improve the quality of data collected by ethnicity; and further strengthening and improving public health communications to ensure they can reach and inform all communities across the country.

It's critical that Government takes into account the voices of people who are impacted by our actions. It's also critical that Departments base their actions on robust evidence, so that we can be sure that they will have a positive impact.