Lack of response to BAME Covid-19 toll risks fuelling tensions, say MPs

A failure to tackle the disproportionate number of deaths of black, Asian and minority ethnic people from coronavirus risks fuelling simmering tensions over racial injustice in Britain, BAME MPs have warned.

They say the absence of practical measures to protect BAME people or any discussion of structural racism from the government-commissioned report this week on Covid-19 disparities makes a mockery of Matt Hancock’s statement in the Commons that “black lives matter”.

The Guardian attempted to contact more than 40 BAME MPs and peers, including every BAME Conservative MP. None of the Tories agreed to speak about the Public Health England (PHE) review. The 13 Labour MPs who responded expressed concern that its lack of an action plan added to BAME people’s frustrations at a time of protests against racism, prompted by the US police killing of George Floyd.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the MP for Streatham, said: “With George Floyd, because of the protests, initially, there were actually attempts to explain that the knee on his neck wasn’t necessarily the cause of death, it was his underlying health conditions, and we see with Covid now in this review that they’re attempting to say: ‘Oh, it’s all of these comorbidities like obesity and diabetes,’ so it’s [as if it’s] not really that black people are facing a particular issue [of structural racism].

“It just sends a message that we don’t matter, and that’s why people are protesting. And I think that the strength of the protests has been even more than it might usually be because of what’s happening with Covid-19, because there’s a lot of pain in the community.”

Concerns about BAME people being disproportionately affected by Covid-19 surfaced in early April. The terms of reference for the PHE report included to “suggest recommendations for further action that should be taken to reduce disparities in risk and outcomes”. Instead, the final version was limited to stating the existence of disparities, which had already been established by numerous studies, prompting allegations that that the government had censored the report.

Yasmin Qureshi, the MP for Bolton South East and shadow equalities minister, said the lack of recommendations was a “massive failure”, adding: “I think if the government does not look properly at the causes and say what they’re going to do, then I think they’ll have missed a golden opportunity to put things right [at a time when] BME communities already feel under the cosh.”

MPs also raised concerns that the PHE review did not address the high toll on BAME healthcare workers and concerns that they are placed in riskier environments and feel less able to speak out. And they highlighted the disproportionate use of lockdown powers against black people, who have been more likely to be fined.

Against that background, many felt that Hancock, the health secretary, saying “black lives matter” when launching the PHE review in parliament left a bitter taste.

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, the MP for Slough, who has lost three relatives to coronavirus, said: “It’s all very well saying black lives matter, but if you’re not going to be taking any action to make sure that, yes, those lives do matter, then those are just hollow words.

“People have been talking about these injustices for so long, and if the government doesn’t take action, I think that that anger and exasperation will only increase, and that doesn’t benefit anybody.”

Chi Onwurah, MP for Newcastle Central, said: “To use the phrase ‘black lives matter’, then to go on to not do anything about the clear outstanding case of black people dying disproportionately, reeks of hypocrisy and will undermine faith in the government’s desire or intention to take action.”

MPs also raised concerns about the risks to themselves, their families and the largely black support staff posed by the Commons reopening. Tulip Siddiq, the MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, said: “I really noticed it when I went in the other day because everyone was talking about the impact on black communities, so all the people who served me, from the tearoom to everywhere, everyone’s black. All the cleaners I bumped into were black.”

Among the practical measures MPs said the government could recommend were wider provision of personal protective equipment, workplace safety audits and advice to multi-generational families living under the same roof, or offering to put some up in a hotel while they shield. In the longer term, many support demands for a race equality audit across Whitehall.

Mark Hendrick, the MP for Preston, said: “Racism has bedevilled our societies through the generations; but the economic, social and health inequalities highlighted by the coronavirus pandemic have exposed racism in a way humanity has never seen before. Long after this crisis is over, we will be judged on how we sought to eradicate the virus of individual and structural racism by dealing with the conditions that have created it.”

The government referred the Guardian to comments by the equalities minister, Kemi Badenoch, in which she said: “Much more needs to be done to understand the key drivers of the disparities identified and the relationships between the different risk factors.”