Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to issue guidance to local authorities on the (a) definition and (b) enforcement of a local lockdown.

The Government wrote to all local authorities in May to ask them to produce Local Outbreak Control Plans, and have allocated £300 million to develop and implement these, including additional capacity.

We have been working with them to produce hints and tips for outbreak plans, which has been shared. The Association of Directors of Public Health have also issued Guiding Principles.

A further Framework for decision makers and Action Cards will be issued at the end of the month, setting out measures that can be taken.

If local councils need additional powers to manage these, we will review if these can be delivered, but we expect the majority of circumstances to be dealt with by public consent.