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 for his policies of the recent rise in covid-19 infection among secondary school children; and what steps he plans to take in response to that rise.

Whilst case rates in children and young people have increased relative to older adult populations, reflecting the protection afforded by vaccination, the risk to children from COVID-19 remains low. Schools across the country continue to have robust protective measures in place, including regular weekly testing to break chains of transmission and keeping pupils in smaller group bubbles. Public Health England surveillance shows that COVID-19 outbreaks linked to education settings have remained low and have broadly reflected cases in the wider community.

We are taking additional measures in areas where there is a high prevalence of the Delta variant, including increasing the availability of testing for staff, pupils and families and working with Directors of Public Health to reduce local transmission.