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 risk to public health of face coverings being discarded as litter.

COVID-19 is known to spread primarily through respiratory particles and the advice of our scientific experts has been that the risk of transmission is greater in enclosed, indoor spaces. Therefore, we do not expect face coverings that are incorrectly discarded as litter to pose a major source of transmission and hence a risk to public health.