Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the correlation between reductions in local authority ring-fenced public health budgets in each year since 2012 and high levels of covid-19 infection and mortality in those areas.

We have not made a specific assessment of the correlation between local authority public health budgets and levels of COVID-19 infections and mortality. The local authority public heath grant was introduced in 2013. Changes in grant allocations from 2015-19 were implemented pro rata. The public health grant has been increased in real terms in 2020/21.

As part of the response to Covid-19, the government has announced that it is making a further £3.2 billion available to councils to help support their efforts to keep communities as safe as possible.