Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the (a) economic impact of lost workforce days due to long covid and (b) impact of those lost days due to that condition on GDP.

The government’s Living with Covid strategy, published on 21 February, outlined that the NHS will continue work to better understand Covid-19 and the long-term health impacts it may have, supported by £50 million in research funding. The Therapeutics Taskforce will also continue to support the eight national priority clinical trial platforms run by the National Institute for Health Research, focused on prevention, novel treatments, and treatments for Long COVID.

HM Treasury will continue to monitor Covid impacts, such as workforce absences, on the economy as we move into the next phase of Living with Covid. HM Treasury does not prepare formal economic forecasts, including GDP, for the UK economy, which are the responsibility of the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

The Living with Covid strategy can be found at the following website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-response-living-with-covid-19