Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether COVID-19 contact tracing, if widely applied, will also extend to school-aged children.

The Government is developing a new test and trace programme. This will bring together an app, expanded web and phone-based contact tracing, and swab testing for those with potential COVID-19 symptoms. This programme will play an important role in helping to minimise the spread of COVID-19 in the future, including for school-aged children.

The programme will include more traditional methods of contact tracing if a child, parent or guardian test positive. This could include, for example, direct discussion with parents and schools on recent contacts. The Government has recruited 21,000 contact tracers to support contact tracing and will recruit more if needed. They will play an important part in tracing the contacts of those with COVID-19, including school-aged children.