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 implications of the lateral flow test pilot programme having taken place in local authority areas with lower transmission rates for his policy on enabling safe public interaction in areas with higher transition rates.

Extensive clinical evaluation from Public Health England and the University of Oxford show lateral flow tests are accurate and sensitive to be deployed for mass testing, including for asymptomatic people. We are identifying how to best utilise this new technology at scale through a series of different field tests and pilots.

Targeted community testing is available for all local authorities in tier 4, tier 3 and those in tier 2 at risk of going into tier 3, with authorities invited to submit their application.