Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department has (a)(i) invested and (ii) spent to date and (b) plans to spend in the next six months on covid-19-related operations.

Support to the Government's COVID-19 response is now Defence's main effort; our role is to support other Government Departments, principally the NHS.

Defence has committed a total of 19,189 personnel (as of 12 April) to the COVID Support Force with 2,958 deployed supporting 71 MACA tasks nationwide. To date, costs have been no more than £27 million. Future costs will depend on the scope of tasks Defence is asked to support.