Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment has he made of trends in the levels of outbreaks of covid-19 in (a) schools and (b) teaching staff.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has not made a formal assessment. However, the UKHSA monitors the number of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases, incidence per 100,000 population, and testing and positivity rates in the ‘educational-age’ cohorts including nursery, primary school, secondary school and university.

In addition, the UKHSA also publishes weekly data on the number of suspected acute respiratory infection outbreaks and confirmed COVID-19 outbreaks reported to Health Protection Teams, by educational setting.