Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he made of the effect of the transition of functions from the Health Protection Agency to Public Health England on the England's preparedness for infection surveillance and control.

Public Health England (PHE) was established in 2013 as an executive agency of the Department. PHE brought together multiple different bodies including the Health Protection Agency to provide comprehensive national surveillance programmes for both infectious and non-communicable diseases and to strengthen preparedness plans.

The United Kingdom’s infectious disease surveillance system will be further strengthened by the creation of the new National Institute for Health Protection in 2021, which will bring together the expertise of PHE, alongside NHS Test and Trace and the Joint Biosecurity Unit, to ensure the UK has the best capability to monitor and control infectious diseases and respond to health protection incidents.