To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has he made of the implications for his policies of the Scottish Government’s policy to relax visiting restrictions to care homes.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will implement a policy similar to that of the Scottish Government on visits to care homes in England.

We keep our policies under continuous review, based on the emerging international and domestic evidence. As the pandemic progresses, we will continue to update our guidance in line with this to ensure that best practice is reviewed and can be applied.

On 5 November, we published updated visiting guidance for care homes which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/visiting-care-homes-during-coronavirus/update-on-policies-for-visiting-arrangements-in-care-homes

We are working to further update guidance as we come out of the current period of national restrictions. We want to bring an end to the pain of separation and help care homes bring families and loved ones together. The launch of visitor testing is a crucial step to making that happen. We aim to rollout visitor testing nationwide by Christmas.