Business: Coronavirus

(asked on 7th July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to publish in full the scientific advice underpinning the Government's policy on which businesses can and cannot currently reopen following their closure due to the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 13th July 2020

The Ministerial Taskforces have been getting scientific input from Public Health England (PHE), who have been directly involved in the taskforce meetings, helping to resolve scientific issues as they draft the guidance. Each individual working group which produced the guidance published on 11 May had active PHE presence, and each set of guidance was produced in collaboration with them, the Health and Safety Executive and other Departments. That model was followed for both the pubs and restaurants, close contact services, and non-essential retail taskforces. The PHE staff who have supported the BEIS taskforces are in regular direct contact with those attending SAGE and have access to the PHE SAGE read-outs. They have endeavoured to reflect closely the SAGE recommendations and have also been responsible for putting some subjects pertinent to BEIS discussions to SAGE, such as persistence of COVID-19 on surfaces, and consideration of social distancing requirements under different scenarios. SAGE information is shared on its website: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response.

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