Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many food factories in England have been required by the Food Standards Agency or Health and Safety Executive to close or suspend operations as a result of a covid-19 outbreak.

The Foods Standards Agency and the Health and Safety Executive do not have the powers to close food factories in response to COVID-19 outbreaks. As with any localised outbreaks, the Joint Biosecurity Centre works with local leaders and public health officials to bring them under control. Where outbreaks are traced to workplaces, the relevant business leaders are also brought into these conversations to develop a plan to suppress the spread of the virus. By working in this collaborative way, it has not been necessary to use regulations to close any food factories in response to COVID-19 outbreaks.