Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how the new Joint Biosecurity Centre will interact with Local Resilience Forms and Local Health Protection Boards.

The Joint Biosecurity Centre is aligned to the CONTAIN strand of the Government’s Test, Trace, Contain and Enable programme. The aim of CONTAIN is to prevent local outbreaks and, where not possible, to contain them locally to minimise the spread of the virus and avoid the need for escalation to a national lockdown.

The JBC/CONTAIN’s regional teams will work closely with local authorities, Local Health Protection Teams and Local Resilience Forums in managing outbreaks of COVID-19 at a local level. Further information on how the JBC will link in with these organisations will be provided in the near future.