Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of reducing the recommended social distance from two meters to 0.5 meters.

The Government has commissioned a review into the two metre (six feet) social distancing rule and we are working as quickly as possible to carry it out, taking advice from a range of experts, including the Chief Medical Officer, Chief Scientific Advisor, behavioural scientists and economists and ensuring it is comprehensive in examining how the two metre rule works in practice, the evidence around transmission of the virus in different environments, incidence rates, and international comparisons. The review is expected to be completed within the coming weeks.