Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the planned duration of the contracts with providers will be for each of the megalabs announced by his Department.

The Leamington Spa laboratory will be run by the Department which will hold supply contracts for resourcing, equipment, machinery, facilities and waste management. These supply contracts will typically run for a 12 month minimum period with potential to extend.

We have paused development work on the second laboratory in Scotland until we have further detailed projections on long-term testing demand.