HM Treasury told us that, during the pandemic, it had made some very significant sums of money available at short notice in conditions of great uncertainty. This funding was ring-fenced so that, if it was not needed for the intended purpose, it would not be spent on other things.13 HM Treasury told us that there will not be separate ring-fenced COVID-19 expenditure for 2022–23 onwards. It suggested that bringing the tracker to a close at the end of 2021–22 was “probably the right thing to do” given the difficulties in distinguishing expenditure from this point.14 We therefore asked what its approach would be to programmes such as NHS Test and Trace and the vaccines programme, which would still be in place after 202122 and were clearly COVID-19-related costs. HM Treasury told us that while some ongoing costs, such as NHS Test and Trace and the vaccines programme, could reasonably be separately identified, it was increasingly difficult to distinguish costs due to COVID-19 from routine business costs.15 It gave the example of the backlog of cases within the criminal courts where HM Treasury asserted that the source of the backlog did not matter, what mattered was dealing with the backlog and that it had not ring-fenced any money specifically for COVID-19-related backlogs. It 11 Qq 56–58 12 Q 19 13 Q 18 14 Q 9 15 Qq 8, 10 10 COVID-19 cost tracker update told us that this approach would provide departments with greater flexibility to deal with the circumstances they faced.16 HM Treasury said that it would keep the departmental allocations under review and respond to changes in the pandemic.17