Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason gyms have been instructed to close in Halton in response to the imposition of tier 3 covid local lockdown restrictions and not in Lancashire which has also been placed into tier 3.

Hygiene and social distancing measures are vitally important for reducing the transmission risk of COVID-19. We know that the virus spreads readily in any indoor environment where members of different households and/or support bubbles spend time together, so the transmission risk in indoor settings, such as gyms, remains high.

We recognise the efforts that have been made to reduce risk across a range of venues. As decisions are based on a number of factors, it is possible for variation to exist between different local authority areas and tiers.