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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Scotland cancels National 5 exams amid new restrictions; UK sees 14,162 more cases – as it happened

Early evening summary

  • David Frost, the government’s chief Brexit negotiator, has hinted that the UK is now willing to agree to robust joint rules with the EU covering state aid. This has been seen as the key obstacle to a trade deal, because the UK government has been resistant to an agreement that would significantly constrain its state aid policy in the future. But today, in evidence to a Lords committee, Frost said he could imagine a situation where the UK would welcome a robust dispute resolution mechanism - because it would want to use it against the EU. (See 5.55pm.) Giving evidence to a committee of MPs later he said:

The point I was trying to make on state aid is that whatever the final agreement, whatever the form of dispute settlement on subsidies, I could imagine we would be at least as assiduous users of it as the EU would be.

He also said that he thought the two sides might be able to reach agreement on this within the next two weeks. He said:

The EU in its text in March this year did not want to make certain aspects sensitive to it subject to [state aid] arbitration. We are likely to do the same. And I think what we’re trying to do in the next couple of weeks is find a balance between those two things.

During the same hearing Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, put the chances of a deal at 60/40. And Frost said fisheries was now the most difficult issue between the two sides to resolve. These are from my colleague Lisa O’Carroll.

That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.

EU tells UK to 'put its cards on table' in trade talks

This is what Charles Michel, president of the European council, tweeted after his call with Boris Johnson earlier. (See 5.55pm.)

Earlier Boris Johnson had a call with Charles Michel, the president of the European council. Afterwards Downing Street released this read-out.

The prime minister outlined our clear commitment to trying to reach an agreement, underlining that a deal was better for both sides. He also underlined that, nevertheless, the UK was prepared to end the transition period on Australia-style terms if an agreement could not be found.

Although some progress had been made in recent discussions, they acknowledged that significant areas of difference remain, particularly on fisheries. Chief negotiators should continue to work intensively in the coming days to try to bridge the gaps.

The prime minister reiterated that any deal must reflect what the British people voted for and that businesses and citizens needed certainty very soon on the terms of our future relationship.

These are from the BBC’s Europe editor Katya Adler with her take on what’s going on.

Adler was referring to these comments from Frost in evidence to a Lords committee earlier (which got overlooked here, I’m afraid, because there was so much else going on).

Updated

More than 2,000 students have now tested positive for Covid at Manchester’s two universities since term began: 1,264 at the University of Manchester and at least 900 at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU).

The latter figure is almost certainly an underestimate, as it doesn’t include any positive tests from a one-day mass testing pilot conducted at two MMU halls of residence — Birley and Cambridge — on 30 September. Around 1,700 students in those halls were told to quarantine on 25 September for a fortnight after an outbreak in the flats.

Manchester City Council, which worked on the pilot with Public Health England, said around 800 students took part, but wouldn’t say how many tested positive. “We will not be releasing this information until all of the tests have been returned and students have been informed of their results,” said a spokesman.

From the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg

Northern Ireland two weeks away from seeing hospital admissions reach March levels, says health chief

In Northern Ireland the chief medical officer, Dr Michael McBride, has said said the region is only two weeks away from seeing hospital admissions reach the level they were in March. (See 5.28pm.) At a briefing he said:

We are only two short weeks away from seeing hospital admissions as high as they were back in March. It is our actions and decisions in the coming days that will determine how bad that situation becomes.

It is too easy to forget how quickly the figures rise and how rapidly the rising cases can impact on our already stretched health service.

Northern Ireland’s chief scientific adviser, Prof Ian Young, said the upturn in cases started from the middle of August. He said:

At the moment the seven-day rolling average of new cases per day is above 500 and has more than doubled within the last week.

Young said the level of testing had increased by around 15% while the number of positive cases had doubled.

The increase in cases is not due to increased testing as confirmed by the percentage of tests which are positive. The seven-day average for that is now running at over 8% and on some days has been over 12% of all tests positive.

Young said the R number for the virus is estimated to now be at 1.5 in Northern Ireland.

Updated

And in Northern Ireland there have been 828 new coronavirus cases, and one further death. According to the dashboard from the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, there were 106 patients in hospital with Covid yesterday. A week ago the number was 89.

Updated

Public Health Wales has recorded 752 further coronavirus cases and three further deaths. The details are here.

The latest detailed hospital admission figures, available from NHS England here, show that the problems seems to be particularly severe in the north, as the head of NHS Providers said earlier. (See 2.23pm.) Of the 472 coronavirus admissions on Monday, 141 were in the north-west, and 123 were in the north-east and Yorkshire.

Updated

Scotland's pub clampdown 'death knell for businesses', says lobby group

The hospitality industry has reacted with anger and despair to news of the two-week shutdown, attacking the Scottish government for failing to consult on the measures before the announcement in Holyrood this afternoon.

Describing the measures as “a hammer blow to Scotland’s hospitality sector and the businesses that rely on it”, James Withers, chief executive of Scotland Food and Drink, said:

This may seem a short-term, two-week hit, but it is targeted at businesses that are barely clinging on to survival.

Liz Cameron, chief executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, condemned the “complete and utter lack of consultation with business” which she said “only serves to compound the blows of these restrictions”. Cameron said:

These measures will sound the death knell for businesses across the hospitality sector, especially pubs and bars. Restaurants and hotels, whilst remaining open, will also be constrained on what they can provide and this will place a large dent in their already reduced income.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Beer & Pub Association has said that the £40m of economic support offered by Sturgeon is unlikely to save many businesses. CEO Emma McClarkin said:

For the majority of premises, the available funds will not even come close to covering the required furlough contributions for the period, never mind ongoing fixed costs and stock. We need to review the financial support on offer and work with government to protect as many pubs, jobs and livelihoods as possible.

Updated

Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, and David Frost, the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator, have just started giving evidence to the Commons Brexit committee (or the committee on the future relationship with the EU, to give it its formal name). You can watch it here.

I won’t be covering it in full, but I will be monitoring it, and will pick up any highlights.

Tighter restrictions expected for Nottingham as Covid cases surge

Similar measures to those currently in place in north-east England – where household mixing is banned in any indoor setting – could be announced for Nottingham, where the coronavirus rate dramatically increased over the weekend.

In the week ending 3 October, there were 440.1 cases per 100,000 people in the city, compared with 71.2 in the week ending 23 September, meaning it now has the fifth highest rate in England.

Nottingham city council’s director of public health, Alison Challenger, described the surge as “extremely worrying” and said strict new government measures were expected to be announced by tomorrow. “I would expect that the measures put in [place] in the north-east are very likely to be those measures that are introduced here,” she said.

Although coronavirus rates in Nottinghamshire remain much lower than the city, despite rises in cases, Challenger said that “it would not be a surprise” if the county was also subject to new restrictions.

She added that although the backlog of infections that went unreported by Public Health England for a week may have contributed to the rise, “it is nonetheless a very significant and sudden change” and additional measures were needed imminently.

It is thought that the surge correlates with the return of students to the two universities, with most positive results being received by younger people who are at a lower risk from the virus, although Challenger said the number of people in hospital was starting to rise in Nottingham.

The University of Nottingham has so far reported 425 cases among its student population, while Nottingham Trent University is yet to make public its caseload.

Updated

National 5 exams cancelled next year for Scottish pupils, MSPs told

One set of exams for Scottish pupils has been cancelled for next year, John Swinney, the Scottish education secretary, told MSPs.

He said that National 5 exams would be cancelled and replaced by grades reached through alternative assessment and teacher judgment.

Higher and Advanced Higher exams, which are taken by older pupils, will go ahead. But they will will be pushed back by two weeks in 2021 until 13 May, Swinney said:

In a statement to the Scottish parliament, Swinney said:

In a normal exam year, National 5s constitute more than half of all exams taken. From a public health point of view, not running these exams significantly reduces risk. National 5 pupils will receive awards based on their coursework and the judgement of their teachers, with robust quality assurance. We have learned lessons from this year’s initial SQA gradings - there will be no algorithm for moderating grades in 2021.

By replacing National 5 exams, we can hold an exam diet for Highers and Advanced Highers if public health guidance allows – these are the qualifications most pupils leave schools with that determine paths into work, college, or university.

Updated

UK records 14,162 more coronavirus cases as sharp upward trend continues

The UK government has just updated its coronavirus dashboard. Here are the key figures.

  • The UK has record 14,162 cases. That is down slightly from yesterday’s total (14,542), but the trend is clear; cases are now running at double what they were this time last week and almost five times what they were a month ago.
  • The UK has recorded 70 more deaths. That is slightly down on yesterday’s figure, 76. It takes the headline total to 42,515. But this only counts people who died within 28 days of testing positive. The dashboard says the total number of deaths where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate, registered up to last Friday, is 57,347.
  • Almost 3,000 patients are now in hospital in England with coronavirus. Today’s figure is 2,944, up from 2,783 yesterday.
  • There are now 376 hospital patients on mechanical ventilation in England, up from 349 yesterday. These are the people who are most seriously ill.
  • Hospital admissions in England are still on a sharp upward trend. On Monday, the most recent date for which figures are available on the dashboard, 472 people were admitted to hospital in England with coronavirus. That was down slightly on the total for Sunday (478), but both figures are well above the figure for Saturday (386) and higher than any figure since early June.

NHS England has recorded 54 more coronavirus hospital deaths. The details are here.

A week ago the equivalent figure was 43.

Beverley Hughes, the deputy mayor of Greater Manchester with responsibility for policing, said police were increasingly issuing fines at weddings which had more than 15 guests. She told reporters at a press conference:

I don’t know if it’s that people have put off weddings that were going to be in the spring and now think they’ve got to get on with it, but it almost feels as if the fines that people will get – the fixed penalty notices – are being factored in as a cost that people will bear in order to go ahead with their weddings.

As well as issuing fines to venues allowing too many guests, the police have the powers to enforce the wearing of face coverings at weddings, including to issue fines (fixed penalty notices) of £200, doubling for further breaches up to a maximum of £6,400.
Greater Manchester police had also attended a number of funerals so large they “needed their own policing operation”, Hughes said.

Updated

Northumbria and Newcastle universities join shift to mostly online teaching

Northumbria and Newcastle universities have announced they will move the bulk of their teaching online, following protests by staff and threats of industrial action after more than 1,000 students in the city tested positive for Covid-19. They join the universities of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan, Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam as restricting face-to-face teaching to a small number of courses such as clinical medicine in the last two days.

Staff at Northumbria had earlier voted to hold a ballot on industrial action over health and safety fears. Iain Owen, a University and College Union regional official, said: “It was the right decision for Newcastle’s universities to move learning online. But it should not have taken the threat of industrial action for Northumbria University to put the health and safety of its staff and students first.”

UCU members at the University of Warwick have also voted in favour of a strike ballot, warning that industrial action is likely if the university’s management fails to shift to online teaching.

“If the university refuses to immediately make online teaching the default option for all teaching, except in limited circumstances of practice-based modules, and to apply this to all staff including casualised staff, then the committee now has a mandate to ballot members of our branch for industrial action,” Warwick’s UCU branch said on Twitter.

Universities around the UK continue to report increased numbers of infections among staff and students, with the University of Birmingham revealing 315 cases as of yesterday, and Leeds more than 550.

Northumbria University.
Northumbria University. Photograph: Lee Smith/Reuters

Updated

There are no plans in Wales for “circuit break” restrictions at the moment but the option was being kept under “very close review” according to the country’s chief medical officer, Dr Frank Atherton.

But Atherton said it was possible that a “rolling programme” of local lockdowns be put in place throughout the autumn and winter to help control the virus.

“Having a flexible policy of being able to move areas into and out of some form of local restrictions, depending on the level of transmission in the area, will help us to manage spikes in cases, while hopefully avoiding the pain of a national lockdown,” he said.

Atherton said the R rate in Wales was believed to be 1.4. He said the number of older people contracting the virus was increasing. In Cardiff in the first week of August 11% of those with the virus were aged over 60. Now the figure is 16%.

Asked if he was worried about Donald Trump’s call for people to be unafraid of the virus, Atherton said he hoped people didn’t take Trump as their guide on the disease.

Updated

Asked what would happen after 25 October, when the new restrictions announced today are due to come to an end, Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish parliament that the intention was to then return to the rules applying now.

Here are two more charts from the Scottish government’s evidence paper (pdf) about Covid trends released this afternoon. (See 2.47pm.)

This one shows how hospital admissions have risen in recent weeks.

Rise in hospital admissions
Rise in hospital admissions Photograph: Scottish government

And this one shows Scotland’s case rate per 100,000 people compared with rates in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and some EU countries. It shows Scotland having a lower rate than England, Wales and Northern Ireland (the worst performer on the chart, by far) – even though Scotland is now imposing restrictions that go beyond what applies in the other three countries of the UK.

Case rates by country
Case rates by country Photograph: Scottish government

Updated

In response to a question from the Lib Dem leader in the Scottish parliament, Sturgeon said she was still committed to a strategy of eliminating the virus. She said all four nations of the UK wanted to suppress it.

This is what Nicola Sturgeon said at the end of her statement.

These new restrictions will last for 16 days. They are intended to be short, sharp action to arrest a worrying increase in infection.

However, although they are temporary, they are needed.

Without them, there is a risk the virus will be out of control by the end of this month.

But with them, we hope to slow its spread. That will help to keep schools and businesses open over the winter. And it will save lives.

Here is my colleague Libby Brooks’ story about the new measures in Scotland. Although Nicola Sturgeon did not use the term, the restrictions will certainly feel like the “circuit-breaker” that people have been speculating about.

Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives in the Scottish parliament, asked Sturgeon to give details of how businesses would be able to get some of the £40m being made available to help.

Sturgeon said there would be a short consultation with the sector before that gets decided. She said this would only take a day or too. But she wanted to speak to them first.

This is what Sturgeon said about why she was not closing pubs completely.

And this is what she said about exceptions.

Sturgeon also says the government will make £40m available to support businesses affected by these measures.

Sturgeon also announces extra measures for the central belt in Scotland.

  • In the central belt snooker and pool halls, bowling alleys, casinos and bingo halls will have to shut for a fortnight from Saturday.
  • People in these areas will also be told to avoid public transport unless journeys are absolutely necessary.

Sturgeon announces temporary indoor alcohol ban and early closing for pubs and restaurants

Sturgeon is announcing the new rules.

  • Pubs and restaurants will not be allowed to serve alcohol indoors for 16 days, starting this Friday. They will be allowed to serve food and non-alcoholic drinks inside from 6am to 6pm.
  • Hotel restaurants will be able to serve people after these hours, but without alcohol.
  • Pubs and restaurants will still be able to serve people outside, subject to the current rules.
  • In five areas pubs will have to close completely during this period.

Sturgeon says Scots have recently been following the rule saying they must not meet in other people’s homes.

That should make a difference, she says.

She says, if she was acting on health grounds alone, she would go further. But she has to take into account the economic impact too.

Updated

Sturgeon says Covid cases are growing at around 7% per day.

She quotes the finding from today’s evidence paper saying, without action, cases will rise to the level they were in March by the end of this month. (See 2.47pm.)

Sturgeon says a great deal of progress has been made.

She says the country is not going back into lockdown, and schools are not being closed.

But she says the new measures “will feel like a backward step”, and in some ways they are, she says.

She says new cases are now running at an average 788 per day.

Hospital admissions have risen by 80%, she says.

And she says the same number of people died last week as in the previous month.

Nicola Sturgeon's statement to Scottish parliament about new Covid measures

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is addressing the Scottish parliament now.

She starts with the latest Covid figures.

She says there have been 1,054 further cases. Some 13% of people tested were positive.

There are 319 people in hospital - an increase of 57 on the previous day, she says.

She says 28 people are in intensive care - three more than the previous day.

And there has been one further death.

The full details are here.

From the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves

From Bloomberg

Scottish government says Covid infections on course to reach March levels by end of month

The Scottish government has just published an evidence paper (pdf) covering Covid trends in Scotland.

It says the reproduction number is between 1.3 and 1.7 and that the doubling time for cases is nine days. It says, if the virus continues to spread at the rate it is doing now, then infections will reach the level they were in March by the end of the month.

We know the total number of confirmed cases is lower than the total number of new Covid-19 infections, as some people don’t have symptoms and some people with symptoms don’t come forward for testing. Currently we estimate the total number of infections is around 2,900 per day, which represents around 13% of the peak in March/April. 2 However, at the current rate of growth (7% increase per day), the number of infections would be at the level of the March peak by the end of October.

Projection for Covid infections in Scotland
Projection for Covid infections in Scotland Photograph: Scottish government

Ministers are considering a rethink of the compulsory 10pm closing time, Joe Murphy reports in the Evening Standard. “Among ideas now under discussion in Whitehall are a later closing time, a drinking-up period, and measures designed to disperse customers more slowly from premises to avoid crowding on pavements and public transport,” he writes.

MPs are expected to vote on the measure next week and, with Labour demanding a rethink, there is now a real chance of the government losing if it tries to maintain the current 10pm rule. This became apparent in the Commons last Thursday, when Tory MPs were queuing up one after another to condemn it and virtually no one spoke out in favour.

Covid hospital admissions in north of England similar to peak of epidemic in spring, says health chief

Yesterday the government published figures showing hospital coronavirus admissions in England rising by a quarter between Saturday and Sunday.

But, as the detailed figures show, and as Boris Johnson pointed out at PMQs (see 12.06pm), the problem is particularly acute in the north.

The overall figure for admissions on Sunday was 478 - up from 386 the previous day.

But of those 478, 208 were in the north-west, and 126 were in the north-east and Yorkshire.

On the World at One Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals and other NHS trusts, said hospitals in the north if England were now seeing admission levels equivalent to those in the spring, when the epidemic was at its peak. He also said health chiefs in the region wanted to see restrictions tightened soon to stop the problem getting worse. He told the programme:

I’ve spoken to three chief executives in the north of England today all three of whom are saying, ‘Please, please everybody, don’t be misled by the national statistics’, which show that, yes, hospital admissions are much lower on a national basis than they were in the first phase.

What they’re saying is they are seeing admission levels which are now at the same as they were in the north of England in the peak. And what they’re saying to us is they’re concerned.

In their view, it’s pretty clear evidence that the local lockdown measures that are in place aren’t working sufficiently well ...

So what they’re saying is, we need to think really carefully, really quite quickly, about whether we do need to go for tougher local lockdowns.

Hopson also said any new restrictions needed to be introduced quickly. He said:

And the other point they’re making is there’s no point waiting for tougher local lockdowns until people are swamped. You’ve got to start turning the tap off probably four to six weeks before you think you’re going to hit the peak that you can’t cope with.

So this is now becoming, as far as northern hospitals is concerned, a really important issue, and one that needs to be dealt with quickly.

Chris Hopson.
Chris Hopson. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

The Guardian’s latest Politics Weekly podcast is out. Heather Stewart and Peter Walker discuss the latest from Westminster. Plus Anita Boateng and Paul Harrison review the prime minister’s performance at the Conservative party conference.

PMQs - Snap verdict

Boris Johnson has always been weak at PMQs, but mostly that has primarily come over as a performance problem. Today he was a bit stronger than usual performance-wise, but it was obvious that, even if he possessed the parliamentary oratorical brilliance of someone like William Hague, he would have failed to have come out on top because he’s handicapped by a fundamental policy problem; he is trying to defend a Covid strategy that just isn’t working.

Sir Keir Starmer highlighted this best in his fourth question. He asked:

In Bury, when restriction were introduced, the infection rate was around 20 per 100,000. Today it’s 266. In Burnley it was 21 per 100,000 when restriction were introduced. Now it’s 434. In Bolton it was 18 per 100,000. Now it’s 255. The prime minister really needs to understand that local communities are angry and frustrated. So will he level with the people of Bury, Burnley and Bolton and tell them, what does he actually think the problem is here?

Faced with the charge that his local lockdown strategy isn’t working, the best reply that Johnson could come up with was: “The problem is, alas, that the disease continues to spread in the way that I described earlier.” Someone needs to tell Johnson to stop using the word “alas” - something he is saying increasingly frequently - because it makes him sound as if he is trivialising the calamitous. But that wasn’t what was wrong; the central flaw was that Johnson could not provide an answer as to why local lockdowns aren’t containing their virus. (“Things would be even worse without them” might not have been an inspiring answer, but it would at least have been true.) Johnson was also flummoxed by the next Starmer question.

In the prime minister’s own local authority Hillingdon, today there are 62 cases per 100,000 yet no local restrictions. But in 20 local areas across England, restrictions were imposed when infection rates were much lower. In Kirklees it was just 29 per 100,000. Local communities, prime minister, genuinely don’t understand these differences. Can he please explain for them?

Johnson did not have a decent response to this one either, even though he should have done, because it featured in his car crash interview with Granada’s Hannah Miller last week.

What redeemed the encounter for Johnson, a bit, is that he was able to put Starmer under some pressure using the charge of opportunism. Labour is now opposing restrictions it once supported, he claimed. On the rule of six, Starmer shot him down with ease (see 12.12pm - Labour did not need to vote for the regulations last night for them to pass, and so the fact the party abstained is a procedural detail of little interest to anyone outside Westminster.) And this line was effective:

For the prime minister’s benefit, let me take this slowly for him. We support measures to protect health. We want track and trace to work. But the government is messing it up and it’s our duty to point it out.

But on the 10pm compulsory closing time, Starmer did sound on weaker ground as he sought to explain why Labour may no longer be willing to vote in favour. Starmer said that he needed to see the scientific evidence for the measure, but that begs the question, why did Labour back the idea in the first place, when that scientific evidence was not available? A more plausible line would have been to say that the 10pm rule has been tried, it doesn’t seem to be working as intended, and now it’s time for a rethink. This is the argument that Starmer was making last week, when he first indicated that Labour would no longer vote to uphold it.

Updated

Taiwo Owatemi (Lab) says Coventry is running out of brownfield sites. So where will the new homes it needs be built?

Johnson says there is abundant brownfield space all over the country. He says as the former planning authority for London, he knows. He says rules are making building difficult. He will turn generation rent into generation buy.

And that’s it. PMQs is over.

Updated

Stephen Timms (Lab) says it would be unthinkable to cut the £20 universal credit uplift before the crisis is over.

Johnson says this is being kept under review.

Paul Bristow (Con) asks if the PM agrees that adult learners need support.

Johnson says he does. He speaks about investment in Bristow’s constituency, Peterborough.

Liz Twist (Lab) says restrictions in the north-east are making it uneconomical for businesses to stay open. What will the government do to help, and to protect the 80,000 jobs in the hospitality industry? And will he meet local leaders?

Johnson says the government will continue to offer support. But Labour must decide if it is in favour of the plan or against?

Maria Eagle (Lab) asks if the PM agrees that tighter local lockdown restrictions should trigger automatic local support schemes. And will he agree one for Merseyside as a matter of urgency?

Johnson says he shares the concern about the loss of jobs. It is wretched, he says. He says the government has already given money to councils and it will continue to put its arms around communities.

Johnson says the government is leading the way globally in protecting biodiversity.

Chris Elmore (Lab) says the chancellor said yesterday that musicians should find another job. What better advice can the government give them?

Johnson says that is not what the chancellor said.

Updated

Andrew Jones (Con) asks about the events industry. It is really important in Harrogate. Will a package of support be offered?

Johnson says this is a very important industry, worth £90bn. There is already support available. But the best solution would be to have a testing system that can allow conferences to take place and theatres to open (ie, the moonshot).

Matt Western (Lab) says Deloitte will not set up its testing facility in Leamington until the end of the month, later than expected. But students are there now.

Johnson says there have been particular problems in some parts of the country.

Christian Wakeford (Con) asks about support for local shops.

Johnson says more money is being spent supporting local businesses.

Sir Jeffery Donaldson, the DUP leader at Westminster, says it would be devastating to Northern Ireland to have barriers to trade in the Irish Sea. Will the PM protect Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market? Will there be unfettered access for businesses trading both ways?

Johnson says Donaldson is “entirely right” and he hopes Donaldson’s words are heard in Brussels.

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says the government has refused to commit to making the £20 uplift to universal credit permanent. Will it do that?

Johnson says he is glad Blackford now supports universal credit. The government will continue to support people in poverty.

Blackford says a thinktank says that, if the £20 uplift is lost, hundreds of thousands of families will be plunged into poverty. Will the PM do the right thing and make the uplift permanent?

Johnson says it is vital that the government tackles poverty. He says more money is being put into universal credit. He says that should give Blackford the answer he wants.

  • Johnson hints government will maintain the £20 increase in the value of universal credit introduced as a temporary measure during the Covid crisis.

UPDATE: Here is the direct quote from Johnson.

It is vital that we tackle poverty in this country, that’s why this government is so proud of what we did with the national living wage and what I can tell him on universal credit is that we’re putting another £1.7bn into universal credit by 2023/2024 and if that doesn’t give him the answer that he wants then he can ask again next week.

We will continue to support people, families, across this country and we continue to spend £95bn a year in this country on working-age welfare, but the best thing we can do for families, for people on universal credit, is to get this virus down, get our economy moving again and get them back into well-paid, high-skilled jobs, and that’s what we’re going to do.

Updated

John Stevenson (Con) asks the PM to move parts of government out of London to Carlisle.

Johnson says he has spent at least one happy night out in Carlisle. He will consider this. He has an ambitious programme to level up, he says.

Starmer says next week MPs will vote on the 10pm closing time rule. Is there a scientific basis for it? If there is, will the government publish it?

Johnson says the basis for it is the same as it was when Labour backed it two weeks ago. What kind of signal does this send to the country? “That’s not new leadership, that’s no leadership.” The government is imposing restrictions to fight the virus and allow the economy to carry on.

Updated

Starmer says he is going to go slowly, to help the PM. Labour supports local restrictions. It supports track and trace. But it wants them to work, and it will go on pointing that out. He quotes figures for how cases are rising in Bury, Burnley and Bolton. What is the problem?

Johnson says the problem is that the virus continues to spread. The government is using a combination of national and local measures. Labour should support them. Does Labour support the rule of six. Yes or no?

Yes, says Starmer.

But he says Johnson needs to hear local communities where infection has gone up tenfold. He tells Johnson that if he listens to the question, they will get on better. He says there are no local restrictions in Johnson’s constituency, Hillingdon, even though cases are higher there than in some areas under restrictions.

Johnson says he has explained the reason for local lockdowns. There needs to be a concerted national guidance, he says. He says it is extraordinary that Starmer supports the rule of six while his party abstains.

Updated

Starmer says thousands of people have been walking around who should have been self-isolating. He says it would be one thing if this were a one-off. But it isn’t. He quotes other mistakes, and says this is government by hindsight. It is 100 days since the first local restrictions were introduced. They are not working. What will the government do?

Johnson says the government will support areas that need lockdowns. He says two weeks ago Starmer said he supported the rule of six. But last night in the vote on it Labour abstained.

Updated

Starmer says the PM’s assurance does not wash. In Manchester some of the cases date back to the middle of September. It is too late to contact people, and if they could be reached, it would be too late to tell them to self-isolate anyway. Why did it happen?

Johnson says Starmer cannot call it a computer error and a human error. He repeats the point about how the mistake has not changed the assessment of the disease. He quotes the latest figures for Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. He says two-thirds of those admitted into hospital on Sunday were in the north-east, the north-west and Yorkshire.

Updated

Sir Keir Starmer asks the PM if he accepts that lives have been put at risk from the computer error last week.

Johnson says all the 16,000 people got their results. And their contacts are being chased up. He says the missing data has not changed the government’s assessment of the spread of the disease.

Sir David Amess (Con) says he is publishing a book next month. Does the PM agree that the last election was about whether the result of the Brexit referendum was implemented? Will the PM do that?

Boris Johnson says this country has left the EU, and on 1 January it will “take back full control of our money, our borders and our laws”.

From Sky’s political editor, Beth Rigby

From ITV’s political editor, Robert Peston

PMQs

PMQs is starting soon.

You can read the list of MPs down to ask a question here.

The new coronavirus restrictions being announced in Scotland this afternoon will be closely watched in England because they may provide a clue as to what Boris Johnson’s will be doing shortly.

According to a story by Harry Cole in the Sun today, Johnson is considering whether to close pubs and restaurants in cities in the north of England. Cole says:

Pubs and restaurants face closure in Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle, with Chancellor Rishi Sunak scrambling to put together a local bailout package for businesses facing ruin.

Some shops could also be forced to shut, but workplaces and schools would remain open.

Mr Johnson’s message came after Downing Street was hit with a “white-faced briefing” from senior medics about soaring virus numbers in the north-west and north-east.

And, according to the Daily Telegraph (paywall), a cabinet row is holding up the announcement of a new, three-tier lockdown matrix to simplify the rules. It reports:

A “traffic light” system of different levels of restrictions was due to be announced on Wednesday – but an intervention by Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is threatening to delay the plans ...

Mr Sunak is understood to be insisting that decisions about which towns should be put in the “red” zone of the “traffic light” system should be made by a new committee of himself, Mr Johnson and Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary.

That would exclude the Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove from the decision-making process, meaning the chancellor – a “hawk” who wants to protect the economy – would not be outnumbered by Mr Gove and Mr Hancock, “doves” who want stricter lockdown measures.

Ministers have also failed to agree on how harsh the strictest of the three “traffic light” lockdown tiers should be. The closure of pubs, restaurants and non-essential retailers in those areas are still on the table, along with a ban on households mixing.

In an interesting column for the Herald in Scotland, Iain Macwhirter says that Nicola Sturgeon is likely to announce what will amount to a “lockdown lite” today - and that policy in England is not that different.

He has tweeted a link.

And here’s an extract.

The message of yesterday might be that for all the recent unpleasantness and four-nation rivalry, the UK may be coming together again in its approach to pandemic management. We are all Swedish now – sort of. Indeed, with today’s lockdown lite we may be seeing a tacit admission that the original lockdown was a mistake. It didn’t suppress the disease, just delayed it, increasing non-Covid deaths while serving to wreck the economy in the process.

Truth be told, the policies, and mistakes, north and south of the Border have never been very different. Even at the height of lockdown, Scottish exceptionalism existed mainly on the fringes of pandemic policy. Though Ms Sturgeon will no doubt find new ways of accusing the PM, as she did before, of “putting peoples lives at risk” by not locking down hard enough. Or of neglecting Scotland’s unique circumstances. As first minister of Scotland she has the luxury of opposition even while being in government. She can and will blame Mr Johnson for not meeting the cost of extended furlough, which promises to be the next big argument.

Updated

The Conservatives spent more than £16m on the 2019 general election campaign, it has emerged. As PA Media reports, the Electoral Commission has published figures showing the party spent £16,486,871 across the country in order to gain its 80-seat Commons majority in December 2019.

The biggest chunk of the money, £5,818,998 went on “unsolicited material to electors”, the commission said. Marketing and canvassing cost £4,471,937, and advertising came in at £3,011,665. Rallies and other such events saw £529,650 spent on them.

Figures for the Labour party have yet to be published as its financial submissions to the commission were late due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The report shows that the cost of the SNP campaign was £1,004,952. Plaid Cymru spent £183,914 in the December election, and the Independent Group for Change paid out £29,556.

It was a good morning for Sage participants on the Today programme. As well as Prof Stephen Reicher, the programme interviewed Prof Calum Semple, professor of child health at the University of Liverpool and another academic who advises the UK government by participating in meetings of Sage, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.

Semple said the government should consider giving up testing primary school children for coronavirus because the risk of them spreading the virus was relatively low. He said:

We’re quite confident now that primary school children are probably a quarter to half as likely to become infected and are also much less likely to pass the infection on. So there’s growing evidence that primary school children are not amplifying this disease.

Then, in secondary school children, again it’s less than adults, but it’s a gradient of effects such that sixth-formers are probably about the same risk as adults, but that data is slightly less stable ...

If it’s shown that [the risk of children spreading the virus is] less than the adults, and if the children themselves are at a low risk of harm, the question has to be should we be making greater efforts to keep children in education, either through improved testing or potentially, with the primary school children, taking them out of testing altogether.

Semple also suggested that children could be excluded from the rule of six that applies in England, as they are in Scotland and Wales. He said excluding children was “something that many scientists and public health doctors are considering”.

Joe Anderson, the mayor of Liverpool, told ITV’s Good Morning Britain today that the compulsory 10pm closing time for pubs was having “the wrong effect” and that it should be up to local leaders to decide what was best for their areas. He told the programme:

We’re seeing 2,500 new cases in the last week in Liverpool and yet we’re seeing restrictions that were imposed on Manchester and Newcastle not working and the increasing infection rate going up.

It’s about common sense, it’s about getting the balance right and about what we can do, what we should do and how local lockdowns work, working with local leaders to get it right.

There’s a lack of consistency, a lack of clarity, but most of all a lack of communication and collaboration.

Anderson is one of four Labour city leaders from the north of England who have signed a letter to Matt Hancock, the health secretary, saying the current restrictions are not working. They have proposed a five-point plan to make them work better, involving local authorities getting more control, test and trace being localised, more compensation for businesses, better support for people who need to self-isolate and more effective monitoring.

The letter has also been signed by Sir Richard Leese, the leader of Manchester city council, Judith Blake, the leader of Leeds city council and Nick Forbes, the leader of Newcastle city council.

Their five-point plan mostly overlaps with a similar one proposed by Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor for Greater Manchester, at the weekend.

Joe Anderson on ITV’s Good Morning Britain today.
Joe Anderson on ITV’s Good Morning Britain today. Photograph: ITV/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

Supplies of some vital medical testing equipment, including material used for Covid tests, are at risk because of a supply chain problem affecting the pharmaceutical company Roche, it has emerged. There are more details here.

Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, who has been giving interviews on behalf of the government this morning, said people should continue to request coronavirus tests when they need them. She told Sky News:

There is an issue with the supply chain. Roche are working with the NHS, the health secretary is fully aware.

I would encourage people to continue going through the testing process - that process is still working.

Roche are pushing very hard to resolve that issue... as soon as possible.

In his Today interview (see 9.27am) Prof Stephen Reicher, professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews and an adviser to the Scottish and UK governments, said there was no point imposing tighter restrictions now unless you used that time to change the way coronavirus is being handled. He said three changes were critical.

Increase testing, that’s number one. Improve the regulation regime, that’s number two, And number three, support people, so they can do whatever you ask of them, like self-isolation.

Action needed now to avoid March-style lockdown, says adviser ahead of new Scotland rules

Good morning. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, will make a statement to the Scottish parliament later announcing a new set of coronavirus restrictions. Scotland’s laws are already tighter than England’s but case numbers in Scotland are rising alarmingly, as they are across the UK as a whole, and Sturgeon said yesterday: “The government is receiving very strong public health advice that action over and above the current restrictions is necessary.”

We got a good insight into what that advice sounds like this morning from Prof Stephen Reicher, professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews and an adviser to the Scottish government on Covid, as well as a contributor to Sage, the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. Reicher said that without action now, a March-style lockdown would be needed by the end of the month. He told the Today programme:

I do think it’s important to do something because if you look at the figures at the moment, the level of infections is about 10% of what it was at the peak in March, but, at the rate of doubling, it would probably be at the same as the peak in March by the end of October. So the good news is we have a window of opportunity to do something.

If we squander that window of opportunity, then we really are in trouble, then we really would be talking about going back to March in terms of lockdown measures. But we’re not talking about that now. We’ve got time.

My colleague Libby Brooks has sent me this ahead of this afternoon’s announcement.

The first minister’s rather unusual pre-announcement yesterday of “the things we will not do” has done nothing to dampen speculation or anxieties. Nicola Sturgeon assured the public at her daily briefing yesterday that the country will not be returning to full lockdown this month, but left the door open for localised restrictions - likely across the central belt where the virus is accelerating fastest - that could well include a travel ban and closure of pubs and restaurants.

Remember that restrictions in Scotland are already tougher than elsewhere in the UK: last month Scots were banned from visiting other homes, with strict limits also in force for outdoor meetings and a 10pm curfew for pubs and restaurants.

The Federation of Small Businesses warned that more than a week of uncertainty about details of the new restrictions - with ministers and public health officials floating the idea of a “circuit breaker” lockdown - had caused emotional strain for employers and staff, while the Scottish Licensed Trade Association predicted that Scotland could lose about a third of its pubs and about 25% of staff if another shut-down was ordered.

Meanwhile, the virus is back in Scottish care homes, with two deaths and 80 staff and residents testing positive following a significant outbreak in two homes in Lothian.

And these are from the BBC’s Glenn Campbell,.

Here is the agenda for the day.

12pm: Boris Johnson faces Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs.

12.15pm: The Welsh government holds its coronavirus briefing.

1.30pm: Downing Street lobby briefing.

2.30pm: Richard Hughes, the new chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, and other economists give evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about tax policy after coronavirus.

After 2.50pm: Nicola Sturgeon gives a statement to the Scottish parliament about new coronavirus restrictions.

Afternoon: MPs debate the regulations imposing the latest restrictions in the north of England.

5pm: Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, and David Frost, the UK’s chief EU negotiator, give evidence to the Commons Brexit committee.

Politics Live has been doubling up as the UK coronavirus live blog for some time and, given the way the Covid crisis eclipses everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we will be covering non-Covid political stories too, and where they seem more important and interesting, they will take precedence.

Here is our global coronavirus 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.

Updated

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