Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Government’s roadmap on easing lockdown restrictions announced on 22 February 2021, what assessment his Department made prior to that announcement of the potential merits of incorporating into the Government's policy on school reopening of the advice of the Eightieth SAGE meeting on Covid-19 on 11 February 2021 that A phased reopening would allow the effects to be assessed which would be particularly valuable if schools were one of the first things to reopen, as there will be more uncertainties in the early stages of releasing measures (e.g. around the impact of vaccines).

At every stage since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, decisions have been informed by the scientific and medical evidence, both on the risks of COVID-19 infection, transmission, and illness, and on the known risks to children and young people not attending school and college, balancing public health and education considerations.

The overwhelming evidence is that the risk to children and young people from SARSCoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is low, but the risks to children and young people of being out of school and college are high and increase the longer restrictions on education are in force. Whilst schools and colleges can be places where transmission occurs, there is no strong evidence of them driving largescale community transmission. Rather, case rates within schools and colleges have been shown to reflect those in the local community, and risks are reduced further in such a controlled environment by having appropriate mitigations and systems of control in place. Based on the recent data from the Office for National Statistics, the risks to education staff are similar to those for most other occupations.

That is why the Government’s priority has been keeping education and nurseries fully open, with a consistent message that schools, colleges and nurseries should be considered last when implementing restrictions, and first when restrictions can be lifted. As such the Government has taken, and continues to take, other steps across society and the economy to manage the spread of the virus, to allow restrictions on education to be lifted.

The Government’s Roadmap is a step-by-step plan to ease restrictions in England cautiously, starting with schools and colleges, taking into consideration the scientific evidence, now published by Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coronavirus-covid-19-scientific-evidence-supporting-the-uk-government-response. The Roadmap sets out indicative, “no earlier than” dates for the steps which are five weeks apart. These dates are wholly contingent on the data; before taking each further step, the Government will review the latest data on the impact of the previous step against four tests. This is a cautious approach to easing lockdown, which is guided by the data, in order to avoid a surge in cases which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS and claim more lives before people have the chance to receive a vaccine. This approach maximises the value in breaks in the easing of measures to allow this assessment and help maintain control, including around school holidays, which the Chief Medical Officer has said is a natural firebreak at Easter. Even as restrictions are lifted, adherence to the nonpharmaceutical interventions that are still in place to reduce transmission remains essential.