Conservative party leader giving evidence in her capacity as minister for equalities during the pandemic

Kemi Badenoch has just started giving evidence to the Covid inquiry. She is being questioned by Hugo Keith KC, counsel for the inquiry.

Keith starts off by asking about the structure of government during the pandemic, and the fact that there was a minister for women, a minister for disabled people, and a minister for equalities (Badenoch).

I was absolutely committed to reviewing the actions that government departments and their agencies had put in place to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19. I am of Nigerian heritage and the higher infection and mortality rates for ethnic minority groups was directly impacting me, my family, friends and community. This was a very personal issue, and it was clear to me that there was much good work underway, but I believed that departments needed to do more, and be more innovative, in their work to address the disparities.

In my work, I was always concerned about the overall risk groups faced, rather than that posed by Covid-19 infection alone. For example, issues such as the impact of stigmatisation from poor communications were also important to consider and keep under continuous review. This was something that I raised in my quarterly reports. This included the second report’s summary of the findings of research commissioned by RDU [race disparity unit] into a small group of ethnic minority people’s personal experiences of Covid-19. Participants in the research felt that communications tended to frame ethnic minorities as a homogeneous group that was vulnerable to Covid-19, which they found stigmatising. My final report also recommended that the government and health agencies ensure that public health communications do not stigmatise ethnic minorities when explaining that they may be more vulnerable or at higher risk. This recommendation was accepted by the prime minister.