Oral Answers to Questions

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The importance of tackling health inequalities and levelling up parts of the country that have so much opportunity, such as Stockton, but need further support to unleash that opportunity is an incredibly important part of this agenda. On the hon. Gentleman’s precise question, we have discussed that issue before. As he knows, we have the largest hospital building programme in the modern history of this country. I look forward to continuing to discuss with him the extra infrastructure needed in Stockton.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con) [V]]

  First, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the whole ministerial team on the excellent start to the vaccination programme. However, my question is on schools. I know that the Government worked hard to keep schools open for as long as they possibly could, but unfortunately, under alert level 5, schools sadly had to close. Will he outline what costs schools are expected to cover—whether state schools or public schools—to roll out coronavirus testing in their schools once they reopen?

[Matt Hancock]

Extra funding is available through the NHS Test and Trace budget for state schools for the testing programme. We are working with independent schools to make sure that they can reopen as soon as safely possible to reopen schools across the country.