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 effect of covid-19 laboratory processing times in the South East on the ability of people in Portsmouth to access such tests.

There is no connection between processing times for samples taken in the South East and the ability of people to access testing. Laboratory capacity is sufficient such that anyone currently wishing to access a test should be able to do so. Turnaround times have been improving throughout January and published metrics will show the significant and sustained increase in performance across the network in 2021.