The government has spent £5.84 million on lateral flow tests.

That figure was given by Health Minister Lawrie Hooper in response to a question from Castletown, Arbory and Malew MHK Jason Moorhouse in Tynwald.

He also wanted to know how much was spent on LFTs in the past four months.

Nothing was spent in September, £294,000 was spent in October, £955,500 in November and £3.13 million in December.

The UK has signalled an end to free lateral flow tests under Boris Johnson’s plans for living with Covid, set to be announced in weeks.

Mr Hooper said that while this was not a move that the Department of Health and Social Care was currently considering, it would likely be a consideration of the Covid Response Group, which sets the government’s Covid strategy.

Mr Moorhouse pointed out that Guernsey was getting its directly from the NHS at ’a very very low cost’ and asked whether that could be done here.

Mr Hooper responded that the government was now looking at a procurement process which would involve the NHS supply chain, but cautioned that this was seeing supply issues.

The island’s tests are sourced and provided by private company Newfoundland Diagnostics.

Mr Hooper said that now that a stable supply chain had been secured, that the government planned to start this formal procurement process in the next few weeks.

He noted that the UK had in recent months been experiencing issues with getting tests through the NHS supply chain, adding that this was ’not a situation we want to be in’.

Asked by Mr Moorhouse what the cost was for each unit, Mr Hooper said that individual test kits cost £2.45, and packs of five cost £11.75.