Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the roll out of mass rapid testing for covid-19 over the next month on the number of positive tests being reported.

Our mass testing pilot in Liverpool continues and will help inform any future rollout of large-scale population testing. We are now rolling out this localised approach to other areas. Eighty three local authorities have now signed up to receive regular batches of these new lateral flow tests, which can allow for results in minutes.