Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of the withdrawal of free lateral flow tests on Covid-19 levels.

As announced in ‘COVID-19 Response: Living with COVID-19’ in February 2022, we continued free asymptomatic testing in high-risk settings where prevalence was high. In August, prevalence had fallen to a level where there was limited value in most regular testing for people without symptoms, although testing continues for those with symptoms. This avoids the majority of people having to test unnecessarily.

There are many factors which affect the prevalence of COVID-19, therefore it is not possible to isolate the specific impact of the withdrawal of free lateral flow device tests or asymptomatic testing in high-risk settings. However, we continue to review data on the prevalence of COVID-19 and if public health advice suggests the reintroduction of regular asymptomatic testing in high-risk settings, this will be considered.