Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the reasons are for funding for genome testing being centralised in Cambridge; and what the tendering process was for receipt of that funding.

NHS England currently commissions genetic testing for National Health Service patients in England from 23 genetic laboratories. NHS England has no knowledge of the centralisation of funding for all NHS genetic testing in Cambridge that is being referred to. Whole genome sequencing is being carried out in Cambridge by Illumina for the 100,000 Genomes Project.