Covid cases (2020)

Response

In the first instance, it may help you to know that the following information is collected as part of contact tracing, which is carried out by a dedicated team in the House of Commons under the guidance of senior medical officials. The House also records information for absences from work due to reasons related to Covid-19 for HR purposes, but this information does not make a distinction between confirmed or suspected cases.

1) Please can you provide details of confirmed Covid-19 cases among members and staff at the House

This information is held by the House of Commons. 11 confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been recorded by our contact tracing team for the period from 1 March to 2 October 2020.

Please note that there is no formal requirement for parliamentary passholders to provide this information to the House, although all are encouraged to do so. Information about confirmed cases is also only recorded during the contact tracing period (21 days).

2) Please specify the role of the individual involved (e.g. which part of the House they work in) and if any others were asked to self-isolate as a result

This information is held by the House of Commons.

The House holds information about the roles of the people who make up the 11 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and the teams they work in. However, this is the personal data of the individuals concerned. This information is therefore exempt by virtue of section 40 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), as disclosure of this information to the public generally, in the House’s view, would not be consistent with data protection principles in Article 5 of the General Data Protection Regulations. This is an absolute exemption and the public interest test does not apply.

The House also holds some information about the number of people asked to self-isolate by our contact tracing team as a result of confirmed cases of Covid-19. As information about close contacts is only retained for short period of time, this figure only covers the 21 days preceding the date of your request.
For this period, 12 people have been asked to self-isolate as a result.

3) I also require details of any follow-up action taken as a result, such as a deep clean or contact tracing.

This information is held by the House of Commons. The House closely follows Public Health England guidance on action to take as and where there is a confirmed case of Covid-19 on the Parliamentary Estate.

Where suspected cases are identified and the individual had been on site in the past 48 hours of developing symptoms, we have:

• Closed any areas where the individual has spent significant amount of time, where possible
• Carried out a specialist clean of the area before anyone is allowed to return

In all cases, we have:
• Undertaken contact tracing in the event of suspected or confirmed cases
• Supported the work of NHS test and trace by providing details of close contacts where a case has been confirmed