PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Coronavirus: Screening (23 June 2021)

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the adequacy of supply of covid-19 lateral flow tests; and what assessment he has made of whether there will be adequate supplies of those tests to enable planned summer events to go ahead safely.

Asked by:
Alison McGovern (Labour)

Last year we quickly established one of the largest asymptomatic testing programmes in the world. We have now conducted over 90m lateral flow tests in England alone, finding nearly 200k cases. Home testing has been confirmed for some Events Research Programme (ERP) pilots only, and is not indicative of Step 4 policy decisions. ERP learnings will feed into wider policy making on step 4, and further details on broader testing policy will be released in due course. Current asymptomatic testing is available until 31 July, with further decisions on extending this to be taken in line with Step 4 of the Prime Minister's roadmap.

Answered by:
Nigel Huddleston (Conservative)
28 June 2021