Closing summary
- Police and fire services might respond only to major incidents if their staff fall victim to Covid-19, the UK government has said in a key planning document outlining how ministers are preparing for an escalating outbreak of the virus. In a press conference marking the publication of the plan Boris Johnson sought to reassure Britons, saying that the government was prepared for all eventualities, and that country would “get through [this outbreak] in good shape” and that the “overwhelming majority” of people who caught coronavirus would only suffer a mild disease from which they would recover fully. At the event, where he was flanked by Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical officer, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, Johnson did not discuss how many people might die if, as expected, efforts to contain the virus fail, and he would not discuss in detail the emergency measures being considered to limit the impact of the disease. Whitty and Vallance were more forthcoming, and they confirmed that under a “reasonable worst case scenario” 1% of those affected could end up dying. See 12.49pm. For more on coronvirus, do read our coronavirus live blog.
- Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has told MPs that in the light of the coronavirus outbreak the government may review the rule saying workers need a sick note from a GP if they need to take sick leave for more than seven days. (See 1.33pm.)
- Labour is expecting to do badly in the local elections, according to a leaked party memo. (See 9.06am and 2.46pm.)
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Updated
More than 40% of Tory members do not believe in man-made climate change, survey suggests
More than 40% of Conservative party members do not believe in man-made climate change, a survey for the ConservativeHome website has found. Some 49% of respondents said that global warming was happening and that human activity was driving it. But 10% said they did not think global warming was happening, and another 33% said that it was happening, but that human activity was not driving it.
More than 1,000 Tory members participated in the survey for the website, which regularly posts the findings from its membership polls. Leadership election results suggest the findings are a good guide to the views of party members as a whole. In the past Boris Johnson himself has claimed that the main cause of global warming is solar activity, not man-made carbon emissions, although that is not a view that he expresses now.
The survey findings illustrate the extent to which Conservative party mirrors Donald Trump’s Republican party in the US, where climate science denial is also commonplace.
Of course, the worldwide scientific consensus that human activity is responsible for global warming is overwhelming.
Irish PM says there is 'growing possibility' of no-deal Brexit happening at end of 2020
Leo Varadkar, the Irish taoiseach (PM), has said he thinks there is a “growing possibility” of a no-deal Brexit at the end of this year, the Irish Independent’s Hugh O’Connell reports.
By no-deal Brexit, he means the UK and the EU failing to agree a trade deal, leading to the UK having to trade with the EU on WTO terms from January next year. The UK government refuses to describe this as “no deal”, and describes this outcome instead as having a trade arrangement akin to Australia’s.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar doing a post-Cabinet briefing in Government Buildings flanked by Ministers Joe McHugh and Simon Harris.
— Hugh O'Connell (@oconnellhugh) March 3, 2020
He says there is a "growing possibility" of a no-deal Brexit at the end of the year.
Government ramping up preparations at the ports. pic.twitter.com/5nEsCgRTLE
The Sunday Times’s Gabriel Pogrund has posted on Twitter a copy of the leaked internal Labour report saying the party is expecting to lose seats in this spring’s local elections. It was covered by the BBC this morning. See 9.06am.
NEW 🚨Here's Labour's leaked internal polling predicting "one of our worst Local Election performances in recent history" in May
— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) March 3, 2020
Full doc shows Labour set to lose seats not only in Red Wall but across the country
Plymouth, Rossendale, Amber Valley and Sheffield could all fall pic.twitter.com/n0Kd1ilxjT
Updated
Labour’s Chris Bryant make a point of order. He says many of the toilets on the parliamentary estate do not have soap. Will the authorities sort this out so the Commons can set an example.
Dame Rosie Winterton, the deputy speaker, says the House of Commons commission will discuss this at its next meeting.
Labour’s Vicky Foxcroft asks what will the government do for people who do not get sick pay.
Hancock says the government is keeping this issue under review.
Hancock says the chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, will provide a private briefing for MPs later this afternoon if they want more information about the coronavirus outbreak.
Lynn Davidson, an MoD special adviser who confronted Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings over his “unkindness” two weeks ago, has been removed from her job, Alex Wickham reports in a BuzzFeed story. He says that No 10 tried to move her to another department, and that she is now leaving government.
And here is some reaction from the Labour whips office.
This is behaviour more in common with that of a tinpot dictatorship than that of a democratic government. It’s worrying that this Govt seems to sack people for standing up to bullying behaviour, rather than for being a bully or on grounds of competence. https://t.co/v4iMK5mLpt
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) March 3, 2020
Updated
The Green MP Caroline Lucas asks about reports that coronavirus is leading to people becoming the victim of racist attacks. Does Hancock agree that terms like the Wuhan virus should be avoided?
Hancock says he agrees.
Labour’s Lloyd Russell-Moyle says the government should ensure that people can wash their hands whenever they enter a public building.
Hancock says he will look into this. He says what matters is being able to use existing sinks.
Hancock says, while using hand sanitiser is a good thing, it is not nearly as good as washing your hands with soap for 20 seconds.
Labour’s Yvette Cooper says many people care for elderly relatives. If they have to self-isolate, what will happen to them, and to the elderly people who rely on their help?
Hancock says the government is very concerned about this issue. It will be issuing guidance to care providers soon, he says. He says the government wants to make it easier to “onboard” volunteers. But volunteers are not the only solution to this problem, he says.
The Conservative Craig Mackinlay asks Hancock if he will ensure that pharmacies maintain supplies of basic medicines.
Hancock says the government will do this. He says the Brexit no-deal planning helped in this regard.
Hancock tells MPs seven-day limit on sickness self-certification could be relaxed
Here is a gov.uk note about the current rules relating to sick leave.
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, implied a moment ago (see 1.22pm) that the current rule saying that self-certification can only last for seven days, and that people need a sick note from a GP if they need to be off sick longer, could be revised in the light of coronavirus.
The SNP’s health spokesperson Philippa Whitford says self-certification for sickness only lasts for seven days. Yet self-isolation is supposed to last for 14 days.
Hancock says this is one reason why this issue is being kept under review.
Hancock is now responding to Ashworth.
He says people who need to self-isolate to protect others count as being sick. They do not need to visit a doctor. He says other points about under review, and he says he “broadly agrees” with the point Ashworth made about ensuring people do not lose out if they are ill.
On the EU and its pandemic early warning system, Hancock says some of the newspaper reports on this have not been accurate.
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, says the opposition backs the government’s plan.
But he asks how people will be able to get a sick note if they are supposed to be self-isolating, and not visiting the GP.
And he asks for an assurance that all workers will be able to get the sick pay they need. The government should legislate for this, he says. He says Labour would help get the bill through.
Ashworth says coronavirus will lead to greater demands on the NHS.
Will the government provide an emergency funding increase for the NHS?
Will the government consult with the opposition on the emergency powers it plans to take?
And why is the government walking away from the EU’s pandemic early warning system?
Ashworth ends by saying the opposition will work constructively with the government on addressing this problem.
Matt Hancock tells MPs UK now has 51 confirmed cases of coronavirus
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is making a Commons statement now on the coronavirus action plan.
He says this disease is “increasingly serious”. As of 9am this morning, there were 51 confirmed cases in the UK, he says.
He says it is more likely that we will see widespread transmission in this country.
At some point scientific advice may conclude it is impossible to contain the virus any further, he says.
Updated
You can read the government’s coronavirus action plan here (pdf).
Boris Johnson's press conference - Summary
Here are the main points from the Boris Johnson press conference held this morning to announce the UK government’s coronavirus action plan. Johnson appeared alongside Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical officer, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser. To a large extent the PM allowed the two officials to answer the more technical questions, and, perhaps not surprisingly, they appeared to have a better grasp of the detail.
Here are the main points from the briefing.
- Johnson sought to reassure the public that the government is prepared for a widespread coronavirus outbreak that could have far-reaching consequences for Britain. He said the government was publishing its coronavirus action plan and that it had four strands:
The plan has four strands. Containing the virus, delaying its spread, researching its origins and cure, and finally mitigating the impact should the virus become more widespread. That is, contain, delay, research, mitigate.
Johnson said it was “highly likely” that more people would contract the illness, and he stressed that the government was now preparing “for all eventualities”. But he said little directly about what emergency measures might be introduced, and he avoiding discussing the possible fatality rate – even though his two advisers made it clear that potentially the number of people at risk was very high. Johnson said that most people would not be affected. He said:
Let me be absolutely clear that for the overwhelming majority of people who contract the virus this will be a mild disease from which they will speedily and fully recover as we have already seen.
He insisted that the country was going to get through the coronavirus, “and get through it in good shape”. And he stressed the importance of people washing their hands.
- Whitty and Vallance said that under a “reasonable worst case scenario” 1% of people getting coronavirus might die. Near the start of the press conference Whitty said that coronavirus had a 1% death rate based on the Chinese experience. And he said that there was a “significant ramp up” in the death rate for those over 80. Whitty commended this graphic from today’s Times (paywall) showing coronavirus death rates.
But Whitty also said that the 1% Chinese mortality rate figure might be overstating the true rate because of the number of people getting the virus but not displaying symptoms. And he implied that the survival rate might be higher in the UK because of its health system being better than China’s. He said:
The exact percentages will depend on a lot of factors - including the healthcare system you have in place, so I would not expect ... the numbers we are seeing in China automatically to read over to the UK.
The two advisers did not predict what proportion of the population might contract coronavirus on the event of containment failing.
- Johnson said that, although the government was planning to legislate to give it powers in relation to schools, borders and quarantine, these powers would be “exceptional and short-term”.
- Whitty and Vallance said that, in the event of coronavirus spreading, ministers would be asked to choose from a series of far-reaching proposals that could be taken to limit the spread of the disease. They did not go into great detail about what measures might be included, although they conceded that some of them could be highly disruptive. They said modelling would be used to decide what was best. But they also said it would be a mistake to introduce these restrictions too soon, because they said that could lead to people ignoring the rules at the point where they were needed most.
- Vallance said a decision to give up trying to contain the virus, and to move to the focus on mitigation, could be taken by a group of countries at the same time.
- Whitty and Vallance played down the prospect of widespread school closures being ordered. Whitty said that the evidence from China suggested children were less likely to be affected by coronavirus than adults. Vallance said there might be a case for closing schools to stop the disease spreading, and to “pull down the peak”. But he said closing schools would impact on the NHS, because staff with school-age children would have to stay at home.
- Whitty said the government was trying to delay infection reaching its peak until the late spring and the summer, when the NHS would be in a better position to cope. He said that, to achieve this, the government might need to do three things: 1) introduce “social distancing” measures (he did not elaborate); 2) isolate older people; and 3) reconfigure public services.
- Whitty signalled that the UK could be affected by coronavirus for another six months. He said he expected it to take two to three months to reach its peak from its outbreak, and for the virus to then take another two to three months to decline.
- Whitty and Vallance played down the prospect of people having to cancel holidays. They said that, at the moment, they were not advising people to cancel their plans, other than in specific countries covered by health advice. And they said that, once the virus had spread widely, there would be no point in avoiding foreign countries anyway. But Whitty said people might want to consider the risk of travelling to countries with a weaker health service than the UK’s with coronavirus at its peak.
- Whitty came close to ruling out any attempt being tried to isolate cities, following the Chinese model. He said this would only make sense in a situation where the virus was starting in one place, with a high transmission rate, and where it was not present elsewhere. (That is not the situation in the UK.) At the weekend Matt Hancock, the health secretary, refused to rule out cities being isolated to prevent the spread of the disease.
- Johnson said the government was considering “all reasonable options” that could help self-employed workers who need to give up work because they are self-isolating.
- Whitty said specific measures were likely to be proposed for care homes. He did not give details of what these might be.
- Johnson said he thought the NHS was “well capable of handling the most tremendous pressures”, such as the ones it was likely to face, although he refused to go into detail of extent to which normal health services might be disrupted. But he did say, if the virus spreads widely, people might have to be “self-restraining” and avoid services like the GP and 111 where possible.
- Johnson said that, when deciding how to balance the need to protect the public against the need to reduce disruption, he would be guided by scientific advice.
- Johnson did not rule out the army being used to help out the police or other public services at the peak of the outbreak.
- Johnson said he had not given up shaking people’s hands. On a visit to a hospital last week where he thinks coronavirus patients were being treated, he shook hands with everybody, he said. “Our judgment is washing your hands is the crucial thing,” he said.
- Vallance said that there was no need for people to panic buy. Asked if the government was worried about this, he said the government expected people to take logical decisions.
- Whitty said the crisis was likely to lead to “extraordinary outbreaks of altruism” rather than widespread outbreaks of antisocial behaviour.
Updated
Boris Johnson is about to start his press conference on the coronavirus action plan.
We will be covering it here, on our coronavirus outbreak live blog.
NEW These are serious new powers for dealing with #coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/GuT002TYSN
— Carl Dinnen (@carldinnen) March 3, 2020
And here is ITV’s Carl Dinnen with another line from the coronavirus action plan.
NEW Police and medical professionals will be given the power to DETAIN people suspected of having the virus. https://t.co/h0cSFqdtZh
— Carl Dinnen (@carldinnen) March 3, 2020
And here is a summary of the coronavirus action plan from the BBC’s Chris Mason.
Headlines from Government coronavirus action plan:
— Chris Mason (@ChrisMasonBBC) March 3, 2020
- more likely than not that the UK will be significantly affected
- great majority of patients will have a mild- to moderate self limiting illness like seasonal flu
- minority will get complications severe enough to require hospital care, most often pneumonia....for a small proportion the illness will be severe enough to lead to death.
— Chris Mason (@ChrisMasonBBC) March 3, 2020
- could well be increase in deaths,particularly amongst vulnerable and elderly.....UK Govt and devolved admins to provide advice to local authorities on dealing with challenge.
— Chris Mason (@ChrisMasonBBC) March 3, 2020
- distribution strategy for UK stockpiles of key medicines and equipment to NHS and social care.
UK coronavirus plans would strip police and fire services to essentials
Here is my colleague Kate Proctor’s report on the government’s coronavirus action plans.
And this is how it starts.
Police and fire services will only respond to the most serious call-outs if their staff fall ill through coronavirus, the government warned on Tuesday, in a key planning document setting out how ministers would deal with an escalating outbreak.
The 28-page action plan envisages that up to a fifth of the national workforce could be absent from work, schools could close and elderly people would be advised not to attend social gatherings.
The measures would only be rolled out if the virus moved beyond the currently designated “contain phase”.
The advice was released in the Coronavirus: Action Plan on Tuesday as the number of cases in the UK stood at 40.
If the illness moves into the “delay” and “mitigate” phases, retired NHS staff could be brought back to help care for patients, the document says.
“With a significant loss of officers and staff, the police would concentrate on responding to serious crimes and maintaining public order,” it said.
It states there could be an increase in deaths arising from the outbreak, particularly among vulnerable and elderly groups, and that local authorities will need help to deal with that challenge, presumably in relation to morgue capacity.
This is from the Labour group on the Local Government Association on the leaked Labour report saying the party is expected to do badly in this spring’s local elections. (See 9.06am.)
Worrying predictions for May local election - Labour councillors, candidates, and members will be straining every sinew to stop it happening, but this shows the scale of the challenge we face. Vital that @UKLabour starts to give local elections the attention they deserve. https://t.co/S5I8mT6ca1
— LGA Labour (@LGA_Labour) March 3, 2020
Q: Are you considering loans to banks or cuts to interest rates? And how will you know when you need to act?
Carney says the bank is considering its options.
And it is “sighted” on what the chancellor is planning for his budget, he says.
He says he expects the collective international response to be “both powerful and timely”.
Carney says he does not expect coronavirus economic shock to be as bad as 2008
At the Treasury committee, Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, is taking questions about coronavirus. Labour’s Liz Kendall is asking the questions.
Q: Are you updating your forecasts in the light of coronavirus?
Carney says the bank is in the process of doing that now.
He says the impact of the virus is potentially large.
It is reasonable to expect that the impact of coronavirus in the places where it has been spread will be felt for one quarter (ie, for three months), or potentially for two quarters.
Carney says health is paramount; economic considerations should be secondary.
He says the UK is one of the most open economies in the world.
But there are differences from the financial crash of 2008, he says.
He says banking is part of the solution, not part of the problem, this time.
And he says household debt relative to income is lower than it was in 2008. He says the “policy response” should involve ensuring people do not have to draw on all their “buffers” (ie, their savings).
He says there will be disruption, but not destruction.
The shock could be large.
But the persistence of that impact can and should be different from 2008, he says.
- Carney says he does not expect coronavirus economic shock to be as bad as 2008.
Updated
Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, has said Priti Patel should stand down as home secretary while she is subject to a Cabinet Office inquiry into allegations she bullied civil servants. Speaking on the Today programme this morning, Abbott said:
You can’t have a government that’s at war with its civil servants.
We want a genuinely independent inquiry – a lawyer-led inquiry and something that can be seen to be independent.
I’m afraid it would be better if she stepped down.
We are calling on her to step down whilst the inquiry goes on.
Updated
According to this Reuters report, in a speech to the World Trade Organization today Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, will say that the UK will “make the case to update the WTO rulebook to tackle underlying trade tensions, such as industrial subsidies”.
David Henig, who heads the UK Trade Policy Project, finds this hard to square with the UK’s refusal to accept level playing field rules in the trade deal it is negotiating with the EU.
The Truss WTO speech just gets better... "“We will make the case to update the WTO rulebook to tackle underlying trade tensions such as industrial subsidies..." while regarding any attempt to constrain UK state aid policy by the EU outrageous... https://t.co/6QTPG7XOSM
— David Henig (@DavidHenigUK) March 3, 2020
Updated
Here is the full text of Mark Carney’s opening statement to the committee about coronavirus. And here is an extract.
The Bank of England’s role is to help UK businesses and households manage through an economic shock that could prove large but will ultimately be temporary.
The bank will take all necessary steps to support the UK economy and financial system, consistent with its statutory responsibilities.
We are monitoring the situation closely across all our functions and ensuring all necessary contingency plans are in place.
Updated
Mark Carney tells MPs Bank of England will take 'all necessary steps' to help UK through potentially 'large' coronavirus economic shock
Carney told the Treasury committee that the Bank of England’s role in the coronavirus outbreak was “to help UK businesses and households manage through an economic shock that could prove large but will ultimately be temporary”.
He said the bank would “take all necessary steps to support the UK economy and financial system consistent with its statutory responsibilities”.
Mark Carney, the outgoing governor of the Bank of England, has just started giving evidence to the Commons Treasury committee.
He starts with a prepared statement about coronavirus.
There is a live feed here.
Matt Hancock's morning interviews - Summary
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, gave a round of interviews this morning about the government’s coronavirus action plan. He was even allowed to appear on the Today programme, with the No 10 ministerial ban temporary lifted due to the severity of the crisis. My colleague Ben Quinn was covering Hancock’s comments on the coronavirus live blog, but here is a quick summary of what he said.
- Hancock said at this point the government was advising people to carry on with normal life. He said:
Right now, that is what people should be doing and otherwise going about their normal daily life because we want to minimise the level of disruption, subject to doing the things we need to do to keep people safe.
- He said that effective action to contain the spread of coronavirus was still possible.
-
But he also said the government plan being published this morning would explain what might have to happen if the spread becomes a pandemic. He said:
It’s quite unusual for a government to publish a plan with things in it we hope we won’t have to do.
- He said at this point he could not say if events like the London Marathon would have to be cancelled. Asked about the marathon, he said:
It’s far too early to be able to tell in that instance.
What we can say for sure is that, right now, we do not recommend the cancelling of mass events, and schools as well should not be closing unless there is both a positive case and the school has had the advice to close from Public Health England.
- He said people who had to self-isolate would qualify for sick pay, even if they were healthy. He said:
Self-isolating for medical reasons if you are healthy counts as being sick in the legislation.
- He hinted that the government was considering what might be done to help self-employed people who have to give up work because they are self-isolating. Asked about people in this category, he said:
There’s a system in place through DWP [the Department of Work and Pensions] to help people who are in difficult circumstances because of that, and we keep these things under review. I talked to the welfare secretary [Thérèse Coffey] yesterday about it. Of course we keep that under review.
- He accepted that the government had to make a trade-off between protecting people and allowing economic life to continue. Asked if he accepted that there was a trade-off, he replied:
To a degree. The answer to the question, which obviously we’ve been thinking very hard about, and the prime minister is leading the thinking on this, is that we will be guided by the science, and that we will minimise social and economic disruption, subject to keeping people safe.
- He said the experts were not advising people to give up shaking hands, because the health impacts of hand shaking were “negligible”. But it was important for people to wash their hands regularly, he said.
Updated
Labour facing one of worst local elections in recent history in 2020, leaked party report suggests
Labour’s general election result was the worst for the party, in terms of seats won, since 1935, but there is more electoral misery to come in the local elections, according to an internal party report leaked to the BBC’s Iain Watson. The document says the party is facing “one of our worst local election performances in recent history” in England and should brace itself for the loss of “hard working councillors” across the country.
In his report Watson goes on:
The document examines three different scenarios, based on varying polling methods - and taking into account Labour’s general election performance.
These suggest the so-called red wall, breached so spectacularly by the Conservatives in December’s general election, is continuing to crumble in some areas.
In every scenario, Labour would lose control of Plymouth, Harlow in Essex, Amber Valley in Derbyshire and West Lancashire. In two scenarios Southampton would be lost and in the worst-case scenario, the bastion of Sheffield, held by Labour for most of the last 75 years, would also fall ...
The document suggests that the situation could be even worse as the party’s polling hasn’t taken into account the recent Conservative poll “bounce” but it adds that it can not yet estimate the effect of a change of leadership on the election results.
But, of course, by the time the local elections are held in May everything could change because the coronavirus outbreak is likely to have disrupted ordinary life to a remarkable degree - with political consequence that, at this point, are just unknowable. One consequence is that the local elections could even be delayed.
The big event at Westminster today will be the publication of the government’s coronavirus action plan. Boris Johnson is holding a press conference to announce it this morning, and then Matt Hancock, the health secretary, will be making a statement in the Commons.
Mostly we will be covering these developments on our coronavirus outbreak live blog - my colleague Ben Quinn is writing it at the moment, but I will be contributing - but there will be some mention of developments here too. Here is Ben’s blog.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Boris Johnson chairs cabinet.
9.30am: Mark Carney, the outgoing governor of the Bank of England, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee.
Around 10.30am: Johnson is due to hold a press conference as the government publishes its coronavirus action plan.
After 12.30pm: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, gives a statement to MPs about the coronavirus action plan.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary when I wrap up.
You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe roundup of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
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.
Updated
