Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what the role is in the COVID-19 testing, tracing and isolating system of local authority Environmental Health Departments and their staff who are ordinarily engaged in such work, particularly in District Councils in two-tier areas.

Following a request from NHS Test and Trace, local authorities have produced Local Outbreak Plans that detail how they will manage an outbreak in their area. We would expect that those plans would include the role that Environmental Health Departments take already in outbreak management. Environmental Health Departments also have a role in supporting the need for surge capacity.