Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the potential link between higher covid-19 death rates and regional health inequalities in the North East.

The recent reviews published by Public Health England and data published by the Office for National Statistics emphasise that we must do more to level up health across the country and reduce health inequalities.

The Government is determined to address long-standing inequalities by progressing work under the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch MP) and through the Prime Minister’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.