Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans his Department has to introduce mass testing for covid-19 for (a) prisoners and (b) prison staff.

We are conducting testing for all consenting staff and prisoners at HMP Littlehey in Cambridgeshire as part of surveillance study to inform future outbreak and infection control within a vulnerable prisoner population.

Further, we will be conducting universal testing of consenting prisoners and staff at 28 prisons across England as part of a surveillance study taken forward in partnership with DHSC, PHE and the University of Southampton. This is one of several studies to be undertaken by the Department of Health and Social Care in England which also includes schools and in the wider community.