Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to expand covid-19 testing to teachers and school staff, outside of exceptional circumstances, ahead of the 2020-21 Christmas term break.

Before Christmas, symptomatic testing was available for all staff through the citizen’s portal, offering testing slots for regional and local testing sites and delivery of home test kits. Teachers had prioritised access to testing as they are classed as essential workers. This is alongside the polymerase contact reaction kits that were distributed to schools.