Afternoon summary
- Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has urged the government to speed up vaccine supplies to his region to allow it to run a “surge vaccination programme”. (See 2.58pm.) He spoke after the government announced that surge testing will be extended in Greater Manchester and Lancashire in response to the rise in Covid cases in those areas. The government news release with full details of the measures is here.
- The number of new Covid cases in the UK in the past week is now 60% up on the total for the previous week, the latest figures on the government’s dashboard show. (See 4.24pm.)
- Downing Street has accused the EU of taking a “purist approach” to implementing the Northern Ireland protocol. (See 1.53pm.) The briefing came as ministers were warned that tariffs and quotas could be slapped on some products by the EU if Boris Johnson overrides the Brexit deal in a trade dispute over the sale of sausages.
That’s all from me for today. But our coronavirus coverage continues on our global live blog. It’s here.
Updated
This is from Alastair McLellan, editor of the Health Service Journal.
NEW: Weekly rate of increase in number of covid+ patients in English hospitals continues to climb - now 13.3% (was 4.5% four days ago). Two thirds of rise n NW
— Alastair McLellan (@HSJEditor) June 8, 2021
Weekly Covid cases up 60%, latest figures show, as UK records 6,048 new infections
The UK has recorded 6,048 new coronavirus cases, according to the latest update to the government’s Covid dashboard. It is only the second time daily new cases have been above 6,000 since March.
This means the total number of new cases over the past seven days is now 60.6% up on the total for the previous week. Yesterday the week-on-week increase was 52.9%.
And the UK has also recorded 13 more deaths, with the seven-day death total up 67.4% on the total for the previous week. But because the daily death totals are so low, this figure tends to fluctuate quite considerably. Yesterday deaths were up just 1.7% week on week. On Sunday they were down week on week by 1.7%.
Updated
In her speech to the Scottish parliament Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, also confirmed that if the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation did recommend vaccination for teenagers, the Scottish government would accept that recommendation. She told MSPs:
The Scottish government is now awaiting advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation on the vaccination of children in those age groups.
I’m sure everyone would agree that it is vital that we continue to rely on expert advice in all of our vaccination decisions.
However, vaccination may very well be a really important way of giving children greater protection, minimising any further disruption to schooling, and also further reducing community transmission of the virus.
And so I can confirm that if the JCVI does recommend the use of the vaccine for children aged 12 and over, we will move as quickly as practically possible to implement their advice.
Yesterday Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said the JCVI advice on vaccinating teenagers would be available within weeks. Unlike Sturgeon, he did not commit the government to going ahead with vaccination for teenagers if the JCVI recommends it. He just said the government would “listen” to that advice.
Updated
Theresa May condemns government cuts to aid budget
In the Commons Theresa May, the Conservative former prime minister, has just finished speaking in the debate on cuts to the aid budget.
She said she was opposed to the cuts for three reason.
First, like all Conservative MPs, she stood on a manifesto saying the party was “proudly” committed to maintaining the target of spending 0.7% of national income on aid. She said she accepted that the Covid pandemic had hit government finances. But ministers are saying the economy will bounce back, she said.
Second, she said she was particularly committed to tackling modern slavery, and she said the cuts would reduce funding for the global fund to tackle modern slavery by 80%. One impact of that would be to cut the money available to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children, she said.
And, third, she said the cuts would damage the UK’s standing in the world.
Bill Crothers, the former government chief commercial officer who became an adviser to Greensill Capital while still working as a civil servant has insisted there was no conflict of interest, PA Media reports. PA says:
Crothers told MPs on the public administration and constitutional affairs committee that his intention was to follow the rules “in spirit and in form” when appointed to Lex Greensill’s collapsed financial services firm.
Links between Greensill Capital, the government and David Cameron have come under scrutiny amid controversy over the former prime minister’s lobbying on behalf of the firm.
Crothers began advising Greensill in September 2015 but remained in his civil service role until November that year, after which he carried on working for the financial services firm.
The businessman told MPs: “My intention was to completely follow the rules, in spirit and in form. I was transparent in all that I did and no conflict happened.”
Crothers, who had a long career at Accenture before moving to Whitehall, said it was always his intention to return to the private sector and that he had expressed this to colleagues.
He said that after eight years in the civil service, his initial plan was to leave the position of chief commercial officer and immediately contract back as an adviser, while also becoming an adviser with Greensill.
But Crothers said that the Whitehall ethics chief at the time, Sue Gray, advised that it would be more appropriate instead to become a part-time civil servant while taking on the Greensill role.
“In the press, the phrase ‘double-hatting’ has been used, and I just feel that is not appropriate - this was a transitional arrangement,” he told MPs.
Updated
Plans to allow an NHS system to extract patient data from doctors’ surgeries in England have been delayed amid concerns around privacy, PA Media reports.
Mass gatherings of thousands of Euro 2020 fans in Glasgow will go ahead, despite an increase in cases of 50% across Scotland in the past week alone.
Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s health secretary, told MSPs this afternoon that, while he understood concerns about the fan zones, where up to 6,000 people a day can gather to watch the matches on Glasgow Green and testing is not mandatory, this would be an “outdoor, highly regulated space”.
He added that people attending were being encouraged to take lateral flow tests in advance, and that permission for the events could be withdrawn at the last moment if the situation changed.
Significant concerns have been raised about these gatherings since Glasgow came out of nine months’ of lockdown restrictions only last weekend, with hospitality groups warning that businesses will not survive a further tightening of rules if cases rise again.
Making her weekly Covid statement immediately after Yousaf spoke, Nicola Sturgeon said that there was “encouraging evidence” that the length of time people were spending in hospital with Covid was reducing.
She also announced that more than half of the adult population in Scotland has now had two doses. She said:
Just as we all hoped, vaccination may well be giving us more scope to ease restrictions, and reduce the social, economic and wider health harms that the response to the virus so far has caused.
The statements took place as owners of soft play centres protested outside the parliament and threatened legal action over restrictions which mean these centres must remain closed in many parts of the country.
Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross also raised perceived inconsistencies around limits on numbers at weddings, christenings and funerals, as well as parents of children moving up to primary school not being allowed to attend nursery graduation ceremonies this month. He compared all these restrictions with the fan zones going ahead without mandatory testing.
Sturgeon said that such decisions required judgement as well as clinical advice and the ability to sometimes say things people didn’t want to hear. She said that the particular characteristics of soft play centres, being indoors, meant they did still pose a risk, but that these businesses could open once areas have moved into level 1, which some did last weekend.
In the Commons Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative former international development secretary, is now opening the emergency debate on the cuts to the aid budget. He started by praising the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, for his call yesterday for MPs to get a binding vote on the cuts. It was one of the strongest statements he had heard from a Speaker, he said.
Mitchell also said that he would not be pushing for a vote today because, like the Speaker, he wants a binding vote. The government would be able to ignore any vote today, and the motion is a neutral one anyway (“that this house has considered the matter of the 0.7% official development assistance target”).
He also said that although he and other Tories opposed to the aid cuts had been described as “rebels”, it was in fact the government who were the “rebels” because they were the ones defying the Tory manifesto pledge not to cut aid spending.
Updated
Burnham calls for jab supplies to Greater Manchester to be speeded up so it can run 'surge vaccination programme'
At his press conference Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, urged the government to speed up vaccine supplies to his region to allow it to run a “surge vaccination programme”. Referring to the measures announced by Matt Hancock earlier (see 12.38pm), Burnham said:
Obviously what we’re seeing here is a localised approach to messaging, more localised support on testing and on tracing and isolation.
We are also saying that also should apply to vaccination.
We are not asking for any more vaccine here than our fair share, what we are asking for is the bringing forward of Greater Manchester’s supplies so that we can run a surge vaccination programme over the next three weeks.
Burnham said accelerating vaccinations would “allow us to go further and faster in those areas where we need to drive the take-up, where those case rates are highest”. He said that if Greater Manchester could get more vaccine doses, “we are very confident that we will have the tools that we need to turn the rising cases around”. He went on:
And that’s not just about protecting Greater Manchester, it is of course about protecting the whole country from the wider spread of the Delta variant.
Updated
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has been holding a press conference. He said that, although Greater Manchester is now one of the Covid hotspots where the government is advising people to minimise travel in and out (see 12.30pm), this was “not a lockdown” and not a travel ban. For more detail on what he said, there is good coverage on the Manchester Evening News’s live blog.
On Radio 4’s The World at One Eamonn O’Brien, the Labour leader of Bury council, said that the surge testing for the Greater Manchester area announced today (see 12.38pm) should have come sooner. He told the programme:
I’m a little bit disappointed it hasn’t come sooner. We have been discussing this as a request for some weeks now and obviously we’ve seen it work in Bolton. So we were very keen on making as quick a start as possible in other parts of Greater Manchester, especially my borough of Bury because it neighbours Bolton.
We would like to see a commitment that we get our vaccination supply bought forward so we can vaccinate far more people as quickly as possible which is of course one of the best ways we’ve got at the moment to protect people from any new variants and any surge that we’re seeing.
Delta variant cases in Wales almost double within week
Public Health Wales said there are now 178 cases of the Delta variant in Wales, an increase of 81 cases since 3 June. It said:
The organisation is alerting the public that Wales may slowly be beginning to experience localised community transmission of the variant, with increasing evidence of cases with no travel history.
The majority of the Delta cases in Wales have been focused around a cluster of cases in north Wales and a cluster of cases in south Wales, but we are also starting to see unlinked cases in these areas and elsewhere in Wales.
Dr Giri Shankar, incident director at PHW, said though the increase of variant cases was expected it was still “concerning” to see. He said:
The increase is likely to be driven in part by the transmissibility of the variant, which we know is easier to catch than the previously dominant Alpha variant.
However, increased mixing also contributes to transmission, and this may be playing a part too.
The spread of the Delta variant in Wales is a reminder that we should not become complacent, even as rates of coronavirus across Wales remain low.
Updated
Dr Sakthi Karunanithi, director of public health for Lancashire county council, said today cases in the county are continuing to rise at a “worrying pace”. He said:
Over the past three weeks, additional surge testing and vaccinations has been undertaken in Burnley, and we have been pushing for this to be rolled out across the county.
The government has listened to our calls and has now agreed to provide Lancashire with enhanced support, which gives us more flexibility to fight this new wave of infections.
As such, asymptomatic PCR testing will be opened up to everyone in Lancashire.
Improving vaccination uptake is also going to be a crucial element in our efforts to contain this latest wave.
Updated
Edwin Poots, the new DUP leader, has announced, as expected (see 11.54am), that he is proposing Paul Givan for first minister. Although Poots has replaced Arlene Foster as DUP leader, he has chosen not to become first minister himself so that he can instead focus on party matters.
— Edwin Poots MLA (@edwinpootsmla) June 8, 2021
The BBC’s Gareth Gordon has a profile of Givan here.
Summary of Downing Street lobby briefing
Here is a full summary of the main points from the Downing Street lobby briefing.
- Downing Street accused the EU of adopting a “purist approach” to implementing the Northern Ireland protocol. Asked about the dispute with the EU about the protocol, which has been exacerbated by the UK unilaterally failing to implement some of its obligations under the deal, which governs trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and which is intended to protect the EU single market (which now includes Northern Ireland), the PM’s spokesman said:
The protocol was a compromise. We didn’t expect the EU to take such a purist approach when implementing it. The protocol itself explicitly says the EU and UK shall use their best endeavours to facilitate the trade between Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK, and that’s the approach we would expect them to take and have been working towards.
Boris Johnson is routinely accused of ignoring rules that he finds inconvenient and one suspects this is a line that he may apply in other areas. For example, on the basis of this report, he might argue that the parliamentary commissioner for standards is applying a “purist approach” to his own declaration about who paid for his Christmas 2019 Caribbean holiday.
- The spokesman said there was “no case whatsoever” for the rule saying that from July chilled meats produced in Great Britain should not be sold in Northern Ireland. Asked if the PM agreed with George Eustice, the environment secretary, who this morning described the rule as “bonkers” (see 9.21am), the spokesman said:
There’s no case whatsoever for preventing chilled meats from being sold to Northern Ireland, and any ban would be contrary to the aims of the protocol and the interests of the people of Northern Ireland ...
We think an urgent solution needs to be found. And obviously there are meetings, starting tomorrow morning. (See 10.06am.)
The spokesman also said the UK had sent more than 10 papers to the European commission proposing “potential solutions on a wide range of issues”, but that it had yet to receive a written response.
Even though No 10 now says there is no case for this rule, the government did agree to it when it signed the protocol. (See 12.12pm.)
- The spokesman did not rule out the UK deciding to unilaterally extend the exemption for chilled meats under the protocol that is due to lapse at the end of June. Asked if the UK might unilaterally extend this (which would be in defiance of the agreement), the spokesman said:
We’re working very hard to try and resolve these issues consensually and we’re looking forward to the joint committee tomorrow.
The prime minister has always made clear we will consider all our options in meeting our responsibility to sustain peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland.
- The spokesman rejected claims that the government signed the protocol with the intention of just ignoring its inconvenient aspects. Yesterday Gavin Barwell, the former Tory MP who served as Theresa May’s chief of staff between 2017 and 2019, made this claim on Twitter.
It's tempting to believe that - despite all the warnings - the government "underestimated the effect of the protocol", but I'm pretty sure it's not true. They knew it was a bad deal but agreed it to get Brexit done, intending to wriggle out of it later https://t.co/V0eNpCNwXL
— Gavin Barwell (@GavinBarwell) June 7, 2021
The EU has no intention of letting the UK wriggle out of what it signed up to, so we should expect UK/EU relations to get worse before they get better
— Gavin Barwell (@GavinBarwell) June 7, 2021
Asked if Barwell’s analysis was correct, the spokesman replied:
No. The protocol was designed as a delicate balance. It was formed in a spirit of compromise in challenging circumstances. The text itself makes clear that it’s not a finished solution.
- Downing Street rejected the Commons Speaker’s call for MPs to get a vote on the cut to the aid budget. Asked if the government would allow a vote on this, the spokesman said the government was acting in accordance with the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015, which allows the aid budget to be cut in exceptional circumstances. He went on: “There are certainly no plans to bring forward a vote.”
- The spokesman said Boris Johnson told cabinet this morning that “while the relationship between cases and hospitalisations has changed, we must continue to look at the data carefully ahead of making a decision on step 4 [further lockdown easing]”.
- The spokesman refused to endorse George Eustice’s suggestion in an interview this morning that people should not travel abroad on holiday this year. (See 11.18am.) Asked about the comment, the spokesman said that in other interviews Eustice made it clear that people could travel to countries on the green list. The spokesman went on:
[Eustice] set out the advice as it is, there is a green list of destinations where it is possible to travel overseas, people may choose to do so if they wish, otherwise we would advise against travel to amber and red list countries.
- The spokesman sought to clarify what Eustice meant when he said this morning that the US would never accept a situation where “a sausage from Texas couldn’t be sold to California”. (See 9.21am.) Eustice was wrong about this, because in the US regulations on what can be sold do differ between states. (See 12.12pm.) The spokesman said the point Eustice was making was with regard to “another country being able to impose rules within the territorial boundaries of a country”.
- The spokesman said the Cabinet Office was investigating “as a matter of urgency” the internet outage that brought down the gov.uk website this morning, as well as many others (including the Guardian’s).
Updated
No 10 complains about EU taking 'purist approach' to implementing Northern Ireland protocol
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, asked about the row with the EU about the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol, the prime minister’s spokesman complained that Brussels was taking a “purist approach” to enforcing it. He said:
The protocol was a compromise. We didn’t expect the EU to take such a purist approach when implementing it. The protocol itself explicitly says the EU and UK shall use their best endeavours to facilitate the trade between Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK, and that’s the approach we would expect them to take and have been working towards.
I will post a full summary of the briefing shortly.
One in 50 secondary school pupils in England absent due to Covid or Covid risk, DfE figures show
One in every 50 secondary school students in England was absent for Covid-related reasons before the half-term break because of a huge rise in children self-isolating, according to the latest figures compiled by the Department for Education.
The DfE said there were 4,000 children in state schools with confirmed cases of Covid-19 on 27 May, the same as the previous week, but the number off school with suspected cases rose to 19,000, while the number self-isolating because of contacts within their school rocketed from 60,000 to 90,000, a 50% increase in seven days. In contrast the number of pupils self-isolating because of contacts outside schools rose from 22,000 to 26,000.
In secondary schools 2% of all pupils were absent for Covid-related reasons, while 1.6% in primary schools were also absent.
Total school absences also rose but those statistics are muddied by some areas taking half-term holiday a week earlier than others, and because in some schools year 11 and year 13 students had departed on study leave.
Schools in the north-west were particularly hard hit. In Bolton, 21% of primary and 31% of secondary pupils were absent for Covid-related reasons, among high rates of absence overall, while in Blackburn with Darwen 15% of primary and 13% of secondary pupils were absent.
Updated
Surge testing extended in Greater Manchester and Lancashire in response to rising Covid cases
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has now told the Commons that surge testing is being extended in Greater Manchester and Lancashire in response to the rise in Covid cases they are seeing. (See 12.23pm and 12.30pm.) He said:
I can tell the house that today working with local authorities, we are providing a strengthened package of support based on what’s working in Bolton, to help Greater Manchester and Lancashire tackle the rise in the Delta variant that we’re seeing there.
This includes rapid response teams, putting in extra testing, military support and supervised in school testing. I want to encourage everyone in Manchester and Lancashire to get the tests on offer.
We know that this approach can work, we’ve seen it work in south London and in Bolton in stopping a rise in the number of cases.
This is the next stage of tackling the pandemic in Manchester and in Lancashire, and of course it’s vital that people in these areas - as everywhere else - come forward and get the jab as soon as they’re eligible because that is our way out of this pandemic together.
Updated
'Minimise travel' advice extended to Greater Manchester and Lancashire as Covid cases rise
Jennifer Williams from the Manchester Evening News says the government’s website had been update to include the whole of Greater Manchester and Lancashire in those Covid hotspot areas where people are encouraged to minimise travel in and out.
Don't think Hancock has said anything specific about GM but the govt's 'minimise travel' advice page has been updated to include GM and Lancshttps://t.co/8Y9tnXIlOp pic.twitter.com/F3FQ7kOaj8
— Jennifer Williams (@JenWilliamsMEN) June 8, 2021
Updated
This is from Ian Jones from PA Media.
Here's how the latest Covid-19 case rates for local areas compare with one month ago.
— Ian Jones (@ian_a_jones) June 8, 2021
The rise in cases is still concentrated mostly in NW England and Scotland, though pockets of the rest of England are now recording an increase. pic.twitter.com/5Wgzm7aTX8
John Campbell, the BBC’s economics and business editor for Northern Ireland, has posted a useful Twitter thread on what George Eustice was saying about the Northern Ireland protocol this morning. (See 9.21am.) He is surprised that Eustice only now seems to be speaking out about the sausage issue, and he says Eustice was wrong in what he said about the US.
Fresh sausages & mince: There is currently a 6 month grace period which allows these products to move GB-NI, albeit with export health certs.
— JPCampbellBiz - Open a window, keep your distance (@JP_Biz) June 8, 2021
Here is the grace period detail. It’s clear this period was to be used by supermarkets to adapt: ‘will be used by supermarkets in Northern Ireland to adjust’ https://t.co/6sFwypqld7
— JPCampbellBiz - Open a window, keep your distance (@JP_Biz) June 8, 2021
The standard EU rules are that these are ‘prohibited & restricted’ goods & don’t get into the single market. This has been the case for GB-EU since 1 January. (Headline is wrong on this, should be GB) https://t.co/SO4YhZ1aIL
— JPCampbellBiz - Open a window, keep your distance (@JP_Biz) June 8, 2021
So come 1 July either these products will be prohibited GB-NI or there is an agreement to extend the grace period or the UK will unilaterally extend.
— JPCampbellBiz - Open a window, keep your distance (@JP_Biz) June 8, 2021
— JPCampbellBiz - Open a window, keep your distance (@JP_Biz) June 8, 2021
The UK AgSec seems to have belatedly woken up to this on the Today program describing the chilled meats issue as ‘bonkers.’
— JPCampbellBiz - Open a window, keep your distance (@JP_Biz) June 8, 2021
He also reckons the US administration wouldn’t understand a situation where a Texas sausage couldn’t be sold in California. But California does have a hard SPS border with the rest of US. https://t.co/Gwok49GqTu
— JPCampbellBiz - Open a window, keep your distance (@JP_Biz) June 8, 2021
The new DUP leader, Edwin Poots, is set to name his new Stormont ministerial team as the party attempts to recover from a number of resignations, PA Media reports. PA says:
Poots is meeting selected party members ahead of the announcements being made throughout Tuesday.
The roles will be designate at this stage, with the appointments post-dated to take effect later.
The current first minister, Arlene Foster, previously indicated that she will stand down when Poots names a new ministerial team.
But Poots said Foster will remain as first minister to lead a British-Irish Council meeting in her home constituency of Fermanagh on Friday.
It has been widely speculated that Lagan Valley MLA Paul Givan will be named as the new first minister designate.
The new appointments come as the DUP has been left reeling by a number of resignations.
The latest member to leave described the “mind-blowing arrogance” of some during a meeting to ratify the appointment of the new leader.
These are from Dmitry Grozoubinski, a trade specialist and founder of the ExplainTrade consultancy, on the row between the UK and the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol.
The sausage thing is a microcosm of the Northern Ireland Protocol. It has everything:
— Dmitry Grozoubinski (@DmitryOpines) June 8, 2021
1⃣ UK complaining about rules it definitely signed up to
2⃣ EU being inflexible on something not remotely threatening anyone's actual safety
3⃣ Hyperbolic headlines
4⃣ Wild accusations
When trade nerds bang on about the importance of trust, this kind of stuff is why.
— Dmitry Grozoubinski (@DmitryOpines) June 8, 2021
The EU could almost certainly afford to find some middle ground and let in some sausages... but can't because it doesn't want to signal to an already perfidious Albion that the NIP is... pic.twitter.com/toxR9wA9gH
Eustice says people should not travel abroad on holiday this summer
In interviews this morning, as well as talking about sausage trade wars with the EU, George Eustice, the environment secretary, also urged people to holiday at home this year because of Covid.
He told Sky News:
Our advice has been don’t travel unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Obviously we had hoped, with these three categories that we had, we had hoped that situation would be improving in other parts of the world, that we’d be able to progressively add other countries to the green list.
Sadly, that’s not the situation, we do have this new variant of concern first identified in India that is now cropping up in other countries, and we’ve just got to take a very cautious approach.
Eustice said that he would be staying at home this year and that he had “no intention of travelling or going on a holiday abroad this summer”.
In fact, although the government used to advise people against non-essential travel abroad, that guidance was changed on 17 May. Since then the government has not opposed people going on holiday to green list countries.
But Eustice’s comments will nevertheless be seen as a sign that the green list is not expected to be widely opened up any time soon.
Young people are increasingly confident about getting a Covid vaccine, Dr Nikki Kanani, director of primary care at NHS England, said this morning. She told BBC Breakfast:
More than four in five 40 to 49-year-olds have had their first dose and two-thirds of 30 to 39-year-olds have already had theirs, and that is still going to increase, of course, as people come forward, so uptake remains high.
We had additional polling over the weekend that shows that the confidence in the vaccine has increased by a fifth - by 20% - in those under-40s.
Cummings has not yet given MPs written evidence Hancock lied, says Hunt
On Thursday Matt Hancock, the health secretary, will give evidence to the Commons health and science committees, who are holding a joint inquiry into the government’s handling of the Covid crisis. Some of the questions will relate to the many and damning criticisms of Hancock made by Dominic Cummings, the former chief adviser to the prime minister, when he gave evidence to the inquiry last month.
The MPs were particularly shocked by Cummings’ claim that Hancock had repeatedly lied about what his department was doing, and they asked Cummings to provide written evidence to back up his allegations. Jeremy Hunt, the health committee chair, told Times Radio this morning that Cummings has yet to submit that evidence. He said:
Well, obviously, Dominic Cummings made some very serious allegations against [Hancock] in particular, saying that he lied repeatedly.
So we will put those allegations to him, but we haven’t received the written evidence to back those claims up that we were expecting.
But we’ll be putting all those allegations to [Hancock] to give him his rightful chance to respond.
According to today’s Times splash (paywall), ministers are considering delaying by a fortnight the full lifting of Covid restrictions in England originally scheduled for 21 June after receiving a “fairly grim” briefing from scientists. The Times reports:
Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, and Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, yesterday gave a briefing to ministers on the latest data that was described as “fairly grim”.
They emphasised concerns about the rate of transmission of new strains of coronavirus, such as the Indian variant, and that vaccinations did not provide 100 per cent protection. Millions of Britons remain unvaccinated.
One cabinet source said they expected a delay of “between two weeks and a month” but suggested that the political fallout was likely to be limited as long as the full reopening took place before the start of the school summer holidays late next month.
Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative chair of the Commons health committee, told Sky News this morning that a two-week delay would be acceptable. He said:
I think the most important thing is that, when we lift this lockdown or these restrictions, we want to know that it’s forever, that we can finally get our freedom back and it’s not going to change.
If we had to wait a couple of extra weeks because that was the scientific advice, I think most people would say that’s reasonable.
Only 1% of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending Friday 28 May involved coronavirus, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics.
There were 95 deaths where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate - out of 9,628 deaths in total. That is the lowest daily total since the first week of September.
The total number of deaths for the last week of May was also 3.1% below the five-year average for deaths at this time of year.
EU says it will retaliate 'firmly and resolutely' if UK does not stick to its Northern Ireland protocol obligations
The dispute between the UK and the EU over the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol will be thrashed out tomorrow at a meeting in London between Lord Frost, the Brexit minister, and Maroš Šefčovič, the European commission vice president.
It’s the first meeting of the joint partnership council, set up to oversee the implementation of the EU-UK trade deal, combined with a meeting of the joint committee, set up to oversee the operation of the Northern Ireland protocol.
In an article for the Daily Telegraph, Šefčovič suggests that the EU is finding it hard to trust the UK because of the government’s decision earlier this year to unilaterally delay implementing aspects of the deal. He says there have been “numerous and fundamental gaps in the UK’s implementation”, and he starts his article:
The prolific English hymn composer Isaac Watts once said: “Learning to trust is one of life’s most difficult tasks.”
And yet it is also one of the most important tasks when it comes to building a productive, enduring and mutually beneficial partnership.
As I travel to London today, it is clear that this week will be a defining one for consolidating trust between the European Union and the United Kingdom.
And in a comment that led to the Telegraph writing up the story under the headline “Europe threatens sausage trade war”, Šefčovič says the EU will act “firmly” if the UK does not agree deadlines for complying with its obligations. He says:
Mutually agreed compliance paths, with concrete deadlines and milestones for the UK to fulfil its existing obligations, would therefore be an important stepping stone – and, I believe, a credible outcome of this joint committee.
If this does not happen, and if the UK takes further unilateral action over the coming weeks, the EU will not be shy in reacting swiftly, firmly and resolutely to ensure that the UK abides by its international law obligations.
Eustice attacks ‘nonsensical’ ban on selling sausages as row with EU over Northern Ireland protocol deepens
Good morning. In a long profile published yesterday, Boris Johnson was quoted as suggesting that politics is all about stories. “People live by narrative,” he told The Atlantic. “Human beings are creatures of the imagination.” And so, with tension with the EU over the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol escalating (or non-implementation - the UK has unilaterally delayed implementing some of the rules it agreed), Johnson may be pleased that its version of the story references one of the great plot lines from the classic Whitehall comedy, Yes Minister.
TELEGRAPH: Europe threatens sausage trade war #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/uD1K21kZ4m
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) June 7, 2021
If you don’t remember the Euro sausage episode, there are reminders here and here.
My colleague Daniel Boffey’s slightly more measured take on the story is here.
George Eustice, the environment secretary, did an interview round this morning and he claimed the Northern Ireland protocol would make it impossible for traders to sell sausages from Great Britain in Northern Ireland. He told Sky News:
What you have to bear in mind is that the protocol always envisaged that both parties would show best endeavours to make the Northern Ireland protocol work, and that included recognising that Northern Ireland was an integral part of the UK and that you should support the free flow of goods to Northern Ireland.
What we really need the EU to do is to respect that part of the protocol and put in place sensible measures to remove things like the nonsensical ban on selling sausages or chicken nuggets to Northern Ireland – not just requiring paperwork, but actually having an outright ban on some of those goods – that clearly doesn’t make sense.
On the Today programme Eustice said this rule was “bonkers”. And on LBC he described it as a “nonsense”. He said:
I suspect it links to some kind of perception that they can’t really trust any country other than an EU country to make sausages. I think that’s a nonsense. I think we’ve got a very good sausage industry in this country, we’ve got the highest standards of food hygiene in the world.
The UK did, of course, agree to these rules when it signed the protocol. Asked to justify this, Eustice argued that the protocol also included a commitment that both sides would use their best endeavours to ensure goods can flow from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. He said the EU should be more willing to look for solutions. He told the Today programme:
There are lots of ways to give the European Union the assurance that they say they want for their single market, and what we should be doing is working together to identify ways forward. And that’s where the European Union have been quite slow to date to engage.
He also suggested that, if this becomes an issue at this week’s G7 summit, President Biden might side with the UK. Until now Biden has effectively been siding with the EU, warning that Britain’s stance could undermine the Good Friday peace agreement. But Eustice said:
I suspect that any US administration would be amazed if you were to say, for instance, that a sausage from Texas couldn’t be sold to California, there would be an outright ban – they really wouldn’t understand how that could even be contemplated.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Boris Johnson chairs cabinet.
9.30am: The ONS publishes its weekly death figures for England and Wales.
9.30am: Bill Crothers, who worked for Greensill Capital for a period while still chief commercial officer at the Cabinet Office, gives evidence to the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee.
11.30am: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
12pm: Downing Street is expected to hold its daily lobby briefing.
After 2pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, makes a statement on Covid to the Scottish parliament.
After 2.30pm: MPs begin an emergency debate on cuts to the aid budget. The motion is a neutral one – “that this house has considered the matter of the 0.7% official development assistance target” – and there will be no division at the end.
Politics Live has been a mix of Covid and non-Covid news recently, and that is likely to be the case today. For more Covid coverage, do read our global live blog.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com.
Updated
