Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the change in the level of funding for public health in the last 10 years on the effectiveness of the Government's response to the covid-19 outbreak.

We have not made a specific assessment of the effect of the change in the level of funding for public health on the COVID-19 outbreak. At the time of the Spending Round 2019, the Government announced that the public health grant would rise in real terms, enabling local government to continue to invest in the services it funds. As part of the response to COVID-19, the Government has announced that it is making a further £1.6 billion available to councils, in addition to the £1.6 billion already announced in March, to help support their efforts to keep communities as safe as possible.