The Department for Education’s top scientific adviser has issued a “clarification” on comments he made this afternoon that current plans to return children to school could risk spreading the coronavirus.

Addressing the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee this afternoon, Osama Rahman said there was a “low degree of confidence” that children transmit Covid-19 less than adults.

Asked if this means “we are potentially putting together hundreds of potential vectors that can then go and transmit [the virus]”, Mr Rahman said: “Possibly. Depending on school sizes.”

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However, the DfE has since released a letter from Mr Rahman to the committee which it says “has clarified some of the evidence he gave today”. 

In the letter, Mr Rahman states: “I have full confidence in the plan to open education institutions for all the reasons set out by government subject to the conditionality of the five tests, including a decreasing transmission rate.”

The letter prompted dozens of responses after it was published on social media, including from Green Party national spokesperson for education Vix Lowthion, who said: “This is another example of government putting pressure on advisers to ‘clarify’, ie, revise the evidence they give in a committee. Why are government so defensive?”

The DfE says it has no further comment.