Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the criteria for the award of contracts to private companies for England’s COVID-19 Test and Trace services; what is the estimated cost of the Test and Trace programme; and what assessment they have made of reports that Test and Trace contractors are failing to meet targets.

Each of the Departmental COVID-19 contracts contain information on the award criteria, whether as a Direct Award using regulation 32(2)(c) under the Public Contract Regulations 2015 under which authorities are allowed to procure goods, services and works with extreme urgency in exceptional circumstances or a call off contract from an existing Government framework contract.

The Government has allocated a total of £22 billion to the Test and Trace programme in 2020-21 with a further £15 billion for 2021-22.  All contracts are being monitored to ensure that performance and quality assurance standards are being met. Where poor performance has been identified we have taken appropriate measures to rectify this.