Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) how much money has been allocated in total to the COVID-19 Secure Marshal programme, (2) how many marshals have been employed, (3) for how long such marshals have been contracted to work, (4) in which local authorities those marshals are located, and (5) what assessment they have made of the impact of such marshals on the level of adherence to social distancing rules.

In October last year, the Government announced £30 million of ringfenced grant funding to unitary and lower tier authorities to support COVID-19 compliance and enforcement activity. The funding can be used for a range of activity to encourage business, individual and community adherence to COVID-19 rules. It is ringfenced for any activity which will support compliance and enforcement of COVID-19 regulations guidance, including funding for COVID-19 Marshals or their equivalents such as stewards or ambassadors, thereby helping to control the spread of COVID-19 across individuals, businesses and in the community.

Local authorities are best placed to determine how best to use their grant allocations to encourage adherence to COVID-19 rules. To date, authorities have reported grant allocations have been used to recruit COVID-19 Marshals or their equivalents and for overtime costs of existing staff, staff training to work on COVID-19 compliance and communications activity to promote understanding of COVID-19 regulatory and guidance requirements. The Department has issued a request for all local authorities in receipt of the grant to report the activity funded and its impact.