Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the laboratory capacity for COVID-19 tests per week available in England (1) within the NHS, and (2) in private and other laboratories; and what is the utilisation rate of that weekly capacity in each group at the latest date for which information is available.

For the week commencing 18 January 2021 the number of tests conducted in pillar 1 was 592,698 against a capacity of 1,352,685, which is a utilisation rate of 43.82%. In pillar 2, the number of tests conducted was 3,233,418 against a capacity of 4,321,944, which is a utilisation rate of 74.81%.