THE TORY leadership contenders must show commitment to examining the impact of inequality in the forthcoming Covid 19 inquiry equality campaigners have said.

The public inquiry into how the pandemic impacted certain communities is set to take place early in 2023. Earlier this year a draft terms of reference was published. However campaign groups strongly protested after learning they included no reference to the impact of race inequality.

Following an open letter from the charity Race Equality Foundation, the Caribbean and African Health Network, the Ubele Foundation and others, the inquiry team, led by Baroness Hallett, agreed to expand the terms of reference to look at the impact of inequality through the lens of the 2010 Equalities Act.

‘Challenging’

In June prime minister Boris Johnson agreed to the updated terms of reference calling them “broad and challenging”. In a statement, the prime minster said: “The UK inquiry into Covid-19 is now formally established and able to begin its important work.”

However Johnson’s resignation on July 7 triggered an election to decide the next leader of the Conservative Party and therefore the next Prime Minister. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are the frontrunners.

Campaigners say they fear that given the initial exclusion of race inequality from the draft terms of reference its impact may be downplayed by the incoming prime minister.

Inequalities

Jabeer Butt OBE, CEO of the Race Equality Foundation told The Voice:  “We, alongside others, have pushed hard to ensure inequalities are at the forefront of the Covid inquiry. Now that progress is finally being made to begin the inquiry, the current chaos in Government must not be allowed to derail it.”

Butt added: “Our next Prime Minister needs to prioritise the Covid inquiry and show that they will help, not hinder, the inquiry’s work to fully investigate the racial inequalities we continue to see affecting the lives of thousands of people across the country.”

A number of reports published in 2020 at the height of the pandemic found that people from black and minority ethnic communities were three times more likely to die or have serious health issues as a result of Covid.

Lessons

The mortality rate among minority ethnic health and social care workers during the first wave of the pandemic was higher than most other ethnicities and this become a serious concern. Analysis from Health Service Journal found that Black, Asian and ethnic minority healthcare workers made up 63% of all Covid deaths in the early phases of the pandemic – despite making up just 20.7% of the NHS workforce.

Without a specific focus on racial inequality, you’re not going to understand why the pandemic had such a disproportionate impact on minority communities

Jabeer Butt, CEO of the Race Equality Foundation

Earlier this year 39 MPs from the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Plaid Cymru and Scottish National Party wrote to the government urging it to accept Baroness Hallett’s updated terms of reference which included the unequal impact of the pandemic on black and minority ethnic communities.

Butt said: “When terrible things happen the question has to be what are we going to do next? And that is dependent on the lessons learned as to why things went wrong. Without a specific focus on racial inequality, you’re not going to understand why the pandemic had such a disproportionate impact on minority communities. And you’re not going to put measures in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”