Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason Transunion is being used to confirm identity for NHS Test and Trace home virus tests instead of the Government's Verify ID system; and what procurement process was put in place which led to the choosing of Transunion for that purpose.

The Department cannot comment on individual contracts due to commercial sensitivity, but public notices of the contracts are being published.

Information on awarded contracts are published at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder

The Government published guidance on how contracting authorities should respond to COVID-19 was published on 18 March at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/procurement-policy-note-0120-responding-to-covid-19

Authorities are allowed to procure goods, services and works with extreme urgency in exceptional circumstances using regulation 32(2)(c) under the Public Contract Regulations 2015. Various options are available which include:

- direct award due to extreme urgency;

- direct award due to absence of competition or protection of exclusive rights;

- call off from an existing framework agreement or dynamic purchasing system;

- call for competition using a standard procedure with accelerated timescales; and

- extending or modifying a contract during its term.