To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he made at the time of the March 2020 lockdown of the capacity of the NHS to cope with a second wave of covid-19.

The focus in March 2020 was on the required National Health Service capacity to respond to the first wave of COVID-19 cases, rather than a potential second wave.

Guidance issued by the NHS in March had set out an operational aim to expand critical care capacity to the maximum and free up 30,000 or more general and acute beds.