Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will set out the criteria for determining an area's local covid-19 alert tier status.

Decisions on tiers are made by ministers based on public health recommendations primarily informed by five key indicators - the case detection rate in all age groups, case detection rates among the over 60 year olds, the rate at which case rates are rising or falling, positivity rate and pressures on the NHS.

Final decisions on tiering are made by the COVID-19 Operations Committee.

As of 6 January, all areas have been moved into tier 4 and the Government will review the tiering allocations every 14 days.