Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the announcement by his Department on 21 March 2020 on measures to protect people at highest risk from coronavirus, what plans his Department has to support the delivery of food; whether his Department has plans to support food initiatives in local communities; and what support local authorities will provide.

On 23 March, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for this Department announced steps to protect 1.5 million extremely clinically vulnerable individuals. These individuals received letters asking them to shield themselves and self-isolate for the next 12 weeks.

To support these high-risk individuals, we are working with local authorities, the food industry, local resilience and emergency partners, and voluntary groups to ensure these individuals have essential items such as groceries and medicine through deliveries and priority supermarket delivery slots, if they do not have alternative means of accessing these.

The system to deliver food packages is now up and running and capacity is building in line with current demand. We have now delivered over 280,000 food packages direct to people’s doorsteps and will be ramping up our food deliveries over the coming weeks.