Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how they plan to make the COVID-19 test and trace system local by default; and what are the timescales for the changes they plan to make to existing systems.

The second NHS Test and Trace business plan was published on 10 December and set out how the Test and Trace service is strengthening its partnership with local government to tailor its response more to the needs of local communities and make the service faster, more reliable and even more accessible. This includes giving local public health teams more control through community-led testing; expanding local tracing partnerships, supported by potentially over £200 million per month of new funding through the Contain Outbreak Management Fund; working with local authorities to support them in providing better support for people who have to self-isolate; and using a shared framework of data, insight and analysis to identify clusters of new infections and potential local outbreaks.