Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to build capacity to secure a test and trace strategy to tackle the covid-19 outbreak.

We are developing an integrated contact tracing and testing programme to support the next phase of our COVID-19 response.

The programme will combine innovative technology, an app which uses Bluetooth technology to detect proximity contacts between app users, with more traditional web and phone-based contact tracing techniques. Alongside this there will be swab testing for those reporting COVID-19 symptoms.

The contact tracing app is currently undergoing testing and we are recruiting 18,000 contact tracers to support the wider programme.

This integrated programme will play an important role in helping us to minimise the spread of the virus in the future.