Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the HM Prison and Probation Service COVID-19 Official Statistics, published on 14 August 2020, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness to date of the testing programme in 28 prisons in England and Wales.

A testing programme to help understand the spread of Coronavirus in prisons and how it is transmitted through individual establishments and the wider estate began on the 20 July. The study, lasting up to 12 weeks, will take place in 28 prisons and is being carried out in collaboration with the University of Southampton, Public Health England, Office of National Statistics and the Department of Health and Social Care.

We are only half way through the live study and therefore it is too early to provide an assessment of its effectiveness to date.