Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when a permanent director to the new Joint Biosecurity Centre will be appointed; whether that organisation will be (a) staffed by civil servants and (b) informed by a standing team of experts; how many staff have been appointed to date; and when wider membership and staffing will be announced.
As the Prime Minister said in his statement on Sunday 10 May, we are currently establishing a new COVID-19 Alert System run by a new Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC), which will be established swiftly over the coming days. The details of the system and the JBC are still being finalised and we will have further details on this in due course.