Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Return to an Address of the Honourable the House of Commons dated 17 November 2021 for specified minutes, notes, and correspondence relating to Government contracts awarded to Randox Laboratories Ltd, HC1072, laid before the House on 3 February 2022, Ref 16, page 26, if he will publish the 15 different companies that Public Health England engaged with on covid-19 testing.

Between January and February 2020, Public Health England (PHE) was approached by a range of diagnostic kit manufacturing companies with regards to market entry to undertake COVID-19 testing. PHE invited manufacturers with market-ready assay kits to supply details of their diagnostics for evaluation, with a signed contract agreeing to the evaluation, if selected. The 15 companies we engaged with during this phase were as follows:

- Altona;

- AusDiagnostics;

- Genetic Signatures;

- PrimerDesign-Novacyt;

- Roche (TIB);

- Seegene-Mast;

- BGI;

- Diagnostics for the Real World;

- Elitech Group;

- Genefirst;

- Pro-Lab-Certest;

- Qiagen;

- Randox;

- Shanghai ZJ Bio-tech_ Liferiver; and

- Genetic PCR Solns_Bioconnections.