Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number of people hospitalised by the B.1.617.2 variant of covid-19 to date.

As of 25 May 2021, 5,559 cases of B.1.617.2 have been identified in England. Of these cases, 201 or 3.6% were recorded to have visited accident and emergency and 43 or less than 1% of those admissions resulted in overnight stays in hospital.