As it happened: Johnson, Whitty and Vallance hold Covid news conference - BBC News
The budget for the testing programme was bigger than that of the Home Office last year, he tells a news conference.
Two big reasons for removing restrictions and testing

There are two big reasons why the government has decided to act now in getting rid of the remaining coronavirus laws in England. The first is the current picture: Omicron has proved to be very mild in terms of the number of people it is killing. To use the technical term, there haven't been any excess deaths as a result of it, or, as Prof Chris Whitty has just put it, "the total number of deaths is slightly lower than the seasonal average at this time of year". The second is cost: the prime minister has said the test, trace and isolation budget in the 2020/21 financial year exceeded the entire budget of the Home Office. It has cost a further £15.7bn in this financial year - from last April until now - and a another £2bn in January of this year alone.