Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding his Department has allocated to research on the utility and safety of UV-C as a means of tackling the aerosol transmission of viruses that cause covid-19; to which research bodies that funding has been disbursed; and how that funding has been so spent by each of those research bodies.

Two grants totalling £296,049 have been awarded for two trials on far-UVC.

£136,000 has been provided to University of St. Andrews to trial the efficacy of far-UVC radiation technology on droplets, aerosols and surfaces in simulated public locations. £160,049 has been provided to University of Dundee to investigate the effects on human skin from viricidal far-UVC radiation.

The spend to date on both trials is planned but has not yet been accounted for by NHS Test and Trace.