Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government plans to prioritise school staff for covid-19 testing.

All essential workers continue to have access to priority testing via the online booking portal. This includes school staff, including support and teaching staff and specialist education professionals.

The Department is also supplying COVID-19 test kits directly to schools for staff and students who develop COVID-19 symptoms and face significant barriers to accessing a test through other routes. Test kits will help symptomatic staff who test negative and are not close contacts of confirmed cases to get back to work as soon as they feel well enough. It is for schools to determine how to distribute their test kits in order to minimise the impact of COVID-19 on the education of students.

The Government is committed to introducing mass asymptomatic testing using new technologies to minimise the risk of infection spread within communities. Pilots are already underway for using these in schools and colleges.