Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 19 January 2021 to Question 135888 on Contact Tracing: Computer Software, if he will make it his policy to update the safer working guidance section on supporting NHS Test and Trace, to include guidance that employers should not instruct employees to turn off the NHS track and trace app when in work, unless there are health and safety grounds for doing so; and if he will make a statement.

Whilst the NHS track and trace app is not mandatory, employers should not discourage their employees from using it in the workplace. There are, however, some scenarios where the contact tracing feature should be turned off. These are when:

• someone is working behind a Perspex (or equivalent) screen;
• a phone is in storage, such as in a work locker;
• working in a clinical setting practising infection prevention and control.

As set out in the Safer Working Guidance, in order to ensure workplaces are Covid-19 secure, employers must have an alternative system in place for people who either do not have a smartphone or do who not want to use the NHS Covid-19 app.