Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of enabling people to have close social contact with a limited number of people outside their household in addition to single person support bubbles during the covid-19 outbreak.

We recognise how difficult it has been for people to be cut off from their friends and family throughout the past few months. Support bubbles are to assist the loneliest and most isolated in society. They were introduced to provide extra support to some of those most impacted by the difficult effects of the social restrictions, while ensuring we continue to keep the rate of transmission low. The policy has been targeted at single-adult households for that reason.