Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of Population-wide Testing, contact Tracing and Isolation to bring the covid-19 pandemic under control and safely lift the lockdown.

The Government launched its new NHS Test and Trace service on 28 May 2020. This includes enhanced contact tracing which brings together testing, contact tracing and outbreak management into an end-to-end service.

The more rapidly we can identify people who may have been at risk of infection and, if necessary, tell them to self-isolate, the more effectively we can reduce the R rate, spread of the virus and maintain transmission at low levels in order to safely lift the lockdown.