Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what criteria the Government plans to use to determine when covid-19 lockdown measures can be lifted.

The Government has set out five conditions which needs to be met before it is safe to adjust any measures.

The first is to protect the National Health Service’s ability to cope; second, we need to see a fall in the death rate; third, we need reliable data from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies showing that the rate of infection has decreased across all settings; fourth, we need to be confident that the range of operational challenges are in hand; and fifth we must be confident that any adjustments to current measures will not lead to a significant second peak of infections.

When we are confident on these five points, guided by science and data, we will look to adjust measures to protect public health whilst allowing some economic and social activity. We will only do this when evidence says that it is safe to do so.