Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that private nurseries and early year providers have access to covid-19 testing kits and lateral flow testing kits.

The Department is continuing to work closely with colleagues across Government and local authorities to secure the most effective approach to asymptomatic testing for the whole of the early years sector. Early years staff, as critical workers, continue to have priority access to polymerase chain reaction testing via the online portal, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-getting-tested

The Department is having ongoing discussions about providing testing via the education testing programme as well as encouraging local authorities to consider prioritising appropriate testing for staff in private, voluntary and independent settings and childminders via the Community Testing Programme.