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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow and Graeme Wearden

UK coronavirus: record 6,634 new cases reported; chancellor announces job support scheme – as it happened

Shoppers in London on the day the UK reported its highest number of new coronavirus cases.
Shoppers in London on the day the UK reported its highest number of new coronavirus cases. Photograph: Guy Bell/REX/Shutterstock

Afternoon summary

  • The UK has recorded 6,634 new coronavirus cases - its highest daily total since the pandemic began. Public Health England has said this increase should be “a stark warning for us all”, but it does not mean that the spread of coronavirus in the community is anything close to what it was at the peak in early spring because far more testing is taking place now, and so far more positive cases are being picked up. But the pace of rise – today’s total is almost 500 higher than yesterday’s – will be seen as justification for the tighter restrictions announced around the UK this week. (See 5.31pm, 5.34pm and 5.51pm.)
  • NHS Test and Trace is still failing to meet key targets, its latest performance data shows. (See 2.55pm and 5.04pm.)
  • More than 40 MPs have now signed an amendment to a motion being debated next week saying MPs should in future get a chance to vote on Covid restrictions. Since March almost all the regulations used to enforce the lockdown, or impose other coronavirus-related rules, have been imposed via secondary legislation, with MPs having no chance to block them before they take effect. This is from the Tory MP Steve Baker.

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

Updated

The Welsh government welcomed the chancellor’s job support scheme but says it falls short on much needed training investment and measures to help job creation.

Finance minister Rebecca Evans also expressed her disappointment at the lack of extra support for some of Wales’ hardest hit sectors, such as steel and aerospace. Evans said:

After pressing for further wage subsidy support, I welcome the job support scheme but I am concerned that it is not coupled with new training investment that will be essential to protecting livelihoods in the long term.

Whilst the eleventh hour measures announced by the chancellor today prevents the worst consequences of a furlough cliff edge, more needs to be done to help unemployed workers find new jobs and incentivise employers to hire new workers. For some workers this announcement is simply too late.

Public Health England has posted this on Twitter because the coronavirus dashboard is having technical problems.

Supermarket chain Morrisons has introduced limits on certain items today, after seeing a jump in demand following the introduction of tighter Covid-19 rules.

The move includes toilet roll and disinfectant. The supermarket chain says it had introduced a purchase limit of three on a small range of products to ensure they were “available for everyone”.

The move echoes the beginning of the first wave of Covid-19 in the UK, when supermarkets were forced to impose restrictions on purchases because of people stockpiling.

New research suggests that only around one person in five with coronavirus symptoms has been properly self-isolating.

The figure is included in this paper (pdf) written by a team of academics, headed by Louise Smith from King’s College London. They have been surveying people since March and, in the period until early August, they found that only 18.2% of people reporting Covid symptoms in the previous seven days had not left home. That was despite the fact that most people said they would stay at home in those circumstances.

% of people with Covid symptoms who are self-isolating
% of people with Covid symptoms who are self-isolating Photograph: Smith

The research also found that only 11.9% of people with Covid symptoms had been requesting a test.

% of people with symptoms requesting a test
% of people with symptoms requesting a test Photograph: Smith

The paper is a pre-print, which means it has not been peer reviewed yet. (Academics used to wait until their research had been peer reviewed before they published it, but because of the public interest in learning about coronavirus, Covid pre-prints are now appearing regularly.) The data is also several weeks old, just going up to early August. But in total more than 30,000 people were surveyed and the data suggests behaviour has not changed much over time.

The findings match similar research that has been peer reviewed.

Commenting on the paper, these are from Billy Quilty, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Updated

Record UK Covid case numbers 'stark warning for us all', says Public Health England

Commenting on the new coronavirus case figures, Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, said:

This is the highest number recorded and a stark warning for us all. The signals are clear. Positivity rates are rising across all age groups and we’re continuing to see spikes in rates of admission to hospital and critical care.

We must all follow the new measures that have been bought in to help control the virus and download the new NHS Covid-19 App which is the fastest way of knowing when you’re at risk.

Yvonne Doyle at a No 10 press conference in April
Yvonne Doyle at a No 10 press conference in April Photograph: Pippa Fowles/DOWNING STREET/EPA

UK records 6,634 new coronavirus cases – highest daily total on record

The UK has recorded 6,634 new coronavirus cases, according to the latest data on the government’s coronavirus dashboard.

That is an increase from 6,178 yesterday and the highest daily total on record.

However, that does not mean that the incidence of coronavirus in the UK is as higher, or higher, as it was when case numbers last peaked in the spring. At that point relatively few tests were being carried out. Far more tests are being carried out every day and and so a much higher proportion of positive cases are being picked up.

The dashboard also shows that a further 40 people have died from coronavirus in the UK.

Updated

Denmark, Slovakia and Iceland removed from travel corridor list, meaning quarantine rules will apply

Denmark, Slovakia, Iceland and the Caribbean island of Curacao are being removed from the UK’s travel corridor list, Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has announced. That means travellers arriving in England from those countries after 4am on Saturday will have to go into quarantine.

Updated

Tens of thousands of care home staff and residents waiting more than three days for test results, figures show

Tens of thousands of care home staff and residents are waiting for longer than three days to get coronavirus test results, missing a key government target, official figures show.

Care home managers have raised concerns that the long delays risk leading to more infections among vulnerable residents because potentially infected staff who do not have symptoms will continue working until they receive their result.

Government figures released on Thursday showed that nearly three quarters (72.5%) of so-called satellite tests, the vast majority of which are carried out in care homes, have taken longer than 72 hours to return a result since the government rolled out weekly testing to care homes at the start of September.

Of the 734,725 tests taken between 3 and 16 September, 532,799 took more than three days to produce a result. More than 32,000 tests did not produce a result at all.

While some tests will have been carried out on the same person, the delays mean tens of thousands of care home staff or residents will have been waiting longer than the government’s target of 72 hours for a result.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has told care home operators that it aimed for all tests in those facilities to return a result within three days. In the latest weekly test and trace report published on Thursday, it said there may be delays because some care homes will carry out tests over multiple days for them to be collected a few days later.

Delays in results are thought to be caused by capacity issues at testing facilities, and the government has promised to boost capacity to 500,000 tests a day by the end of next month.

Updated

Scottish government says Sunak's job support scheme 'disappointing' and doesn't go far enough

Scotland’s finance minister Kate Forbes says that Rishi Sunak’s jobs package doesn’t go far enough or provide sufficient clarity for the over 217,000 Scots still on furlough. In a statement Forbes said it was “disappointing that these changes don’t take into account our current reality of local lockdowns, with no apparent flexibility to support local or national restrictions, or those sectors, like the events sector, that have not yet been able to reopen”.

She added:

As I have stressed before, we have responded to Covid-19 without the fiscal levers we require. Not only is the UK government denying us the appropriate financial powers needed to fully respond to the pandemic, it has also removed any clarity about how much funding we will receive by deciding to scrap this autumn’s UK budget.

Rishi Sunak’s scaled-back job support scheme will ‘pull the rug’ from under so-called ‘zombie companies’ who have been limping along through the pandemic.

So warns Gareth Prince, partner at accountancy firm Begbies Traynor.

That’s because the structure of the subsidy scheme means an employee must still pay more than half a staff member’s wages, even if they only do 33% of their contracted hours [because the employer also pays a third of the unworked hours].

Prince writes:

“Amid difficult circumstances, the Chancellor was under pressure to bridge the gap and avoid a cliff edge once the furlough scheme ends. On the face of it, this new package of measures provides a helping hand to get people back into the workplace on reduced hours. However, the lion’s share of responsibility now shifts to the employer who will have to find 55% of an employee’s pay for working just one third of their usual hours.

“The proposals are clearly designed to support viable jobs and businesses, but will pull the rug from under so-called ‘zombie’ companies. It remains to be seen if it is enough to safeguard viable jobs and stem the tide of inevitable redundancies.

Rishi Sunak at his press conference, being questioned by BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg.
Rishi Sunak at his press conference, being questioned by BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg. Photograph: John Sibley/PA

Experts have warned young people must be made aware that while they have a low risk of dying from Covid-19, it can leave them with persistent symptoms that can affect their ability to work and live life to the full, potentially for months.

Speaking at an online meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine, Carolyn Chew-Graham, GP principal in Central Manchester and professor of general practice research at Keele University, said it was crucial that GPs had a way of recording so-called “long Covid”, noting at present it was difficult to assess how many people were experiencing ongoing symptoms.

Dr Alastair Miller, deputy medical director at the joint Royal Colleges of Physicians training board, said the main reason for Covid testing was for infection control and scientific studies.

However Dr Nisreen Alwan, associate professor in public health at the University of Southampton who is herself living with ongoing effects of Covid, said testing was crucial to patients themselves in the absence of a clinical definition of long Covid. She said:

Testing is everything for people suffering with long Covid because they have some sort of solid evidence ‘there is something wrong with me and it is not all in my head, and I am feeling these symptoms and I need investigations, and I need care.’

Updated

This chart, from Capital Economics, shows neatly how the UK’s new wage support scheme will cost the Treasury rather less than the furlough scheme, and put more of the burden on companies.

The new UK wage subsidy scheme vs the furlough scheme

Matthew Wort, partner at Anthony Collins Solicitors, says the new scheme will best suit companies who are still running at close to capacity.

Businesses still effectively have to cover 55% of employment costs for potentially only a third of work being completed. As a result, the scheme is most likely to be used where there has only been a small drop off in work.

For example, an employee who returns to work on 70% of normal hours would only lost 10% of their pay [they’d get 70% of their wages as normal, with the government and their employees picking up 10% each, and 10% (the remaining third of the shortfall) lost].

Credit rating agency Moody’s has warned that more UK households will miss mortgage payments in the coming months.

Greg O’Reilly, vice president at Moody’s, points out that the UK’s mortgage payment holiday ends on 31 October - just as the new wage subsidy scheme begins.

“The replacement of the furlough scheme with the emergency job scheme will lead to an increase in missed mortgage payments because it will benefit fewer people,”

“Around 10% of securitised prime mortgages were under payment moratorium based on monthly transaction data received in August. So far, maturing payment moratoriums have not resulted in any significant levels of arrears, but this pattern is likely to change starting from end of October, when borrowers will no longer be able to request further payment holidays at the same time that fewer will be eligible for employment support.“

Updated

While Rishi Sunak was holding his press conference, the governor of the Bank of England was welcoming today’s measures.

Reuters has the details:

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on Thursday he strongly welcomed new, scaled-back support for jobs announced by finance minister Rishi Sunak.

“I welcome today that once again we’ve seen that action,” Bailey told an online audience from the North East England Chamber of Commerce.

But Bailey also warned that the fast pattern of recovery seen over the summer probably won’t continue in the same way, Reuters adds.

Updated

Here is our colleague Larry Elliott’s take on Rishi Sunak’s new job support scheme. “The snap judgment from experts was that the winter package would temper the increase in joblessness but little more than that,” Larry says.

Q: You must have done modelling. How many jobs do you expect to go?

Sunak says he does not have a figure. But other forecasters have come up with figures. And they make for grim reading, he says. That is why he is doing all he can to protect jobs.

And that’s it. The press conference is over. Sunak did not say anything startlingly new, although he was more explicit than he was in his Commons statement about how he sees the new scheme as providing an incentive to firms to hold onto staff because of its interaction with the job retention bonus. (If firms sack people before 31 January, they lose £1,000.)

He also gave a few clues as to how much he expects this all to cost. (See 3.22pm.)

Sunak says 95% of people who are majority self-employed have received support.

He says the Treasury cannot help people whom it does not know about, people who have not filed a tax return.

Q: What is your message to people still on full-time furlough? Should they get another job? And in the summer your message was eat out to help out. What is it now, given that Chris Whitty does not want us to do that?

Sunak says he hopes people on furlough will be able to go back to work.

As for what can be done to help, starting a business is great. And he says people should follow the guidelines.

There are early signs of progress. GDP is starting to grow. Retail sales are up, he says.

Q: You said the damage to the economy is permanent. Shouldn’t the state therefore also become smaller?

Sunak says he did not say the damage to the economy was permanent. He says he said that, because we know Covid will be around for a while, it is necessary to adjust.

He says the state has a different role compared to normal.

In general, he is in favour of the state being nimble and agile, and not taking too much of people’s money. But in the short term it is right that the state is doing what it’s doing, to help people.

Q: Don’t firms have an incentive now to lay people off?

Sunak says if you look at how the scheme combines with the job retention bonus, there is a powerful incentive to keep people on.

He says many companies called for a scheme exactly like this.

Q: Were you given any advice on whether Eat Out to Help Out would contribute to the spread of the virus?

Sunak says what is happening in the UK is similar to what is happening elsewhere. So, he says, he does not think you can attribute a link.

But he says he thinks it is right that we strive to attain normalcy.

Q: Capital Economics say these will cost £5bn. (See 1.29pm.) What is your estimate?

Sunak says the Treasury will publish full costings in the autumn.

He says the VAT cut will cost around £800m.

The loan deferrals are hard to cost, he says.

And he says it is hard to estimate how much the job support scheme will cost. But someone on the furlough scheme now on average makes around £1,400 per month. If they were put on the job support scheme, that person would cost the government £300 per month. You can scale up from that, he says.

Updated

Q: How are you going to pay for these measures in the long term?

Sunak says that’s an important question. He says it would not be sustainable or affordable to carry on as now. That is why the new support is more targeted.

He says over time the government will need to address the public finances.

There were in a strong position at the start because of decisions taken by his predecessors, he says.

He says he will have to make “difficult decisions in the future”.

Q: Will you beef up these measures if further restrictions are imposed?

Sunak says he has just announced these measures. The government will see how they work. But he is not ruling out doing more. He says he will continue to respond creatively.

Q: Can you say unemployment won’t go over 4m? And can you say to people are risk of losing their job they will be able to get a new job by Christmas?

Sunak says he would be lying if he said he knew what would happen. Unemployment is rising and should continue to rise, he says.

Q: Some sectors of the economy are restricted, like hospitality. You did not extend the furlough scheme to those sectors. Are those areas where jobs will just have to go?

Sunak says the hospitality sector is not paying any business rates. They have had cash grants of £10,000 or £25,000. There was Eat Out to Help Out. And it has had a VAT cut, which has been extended.

And they can use the new scheme.

Most businesses in hospitality are open, but with reduced demand. He says his scheme will help.

Q: People will be very anxious about whether their jobs are viable. We spoke to the owner of a City sandwich firm recently. His trade has fallen by 90%. Are those jobs viable?

Sunak says it is not for him to talk about specific jobs. But he says the economy will change. He can’t promise people will always be able to go back to the job they had. He says government measures will help people find new jobs.

Q: Will employers really want to hold on to staff?

Sunak says this scheme involves a partnership. The cost of people not working is shared equally between the government, the employer and the employee. “We’re all in this together,” he says.

Businesses do have a cash incentive to retain staff, because of the job retention bonus, he says.

Q: How many jobs can you save? And what jobs are no longer viable?

Sunak says when he launched the furlough scheme, he did not know how many people would take it up. So he can’t be sure. But he hopes a large number of jobs can be saved.

And, on viability, he says it is not for him to decide. But he says this scheme will only apply to jobs where people are working some of the time. That will be a test of viability, he says.

Rishi Sunak's press conference

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is holding his press conference now.

He starts by repeating the point he made to MPs earlier, about how Britain needs to adjust to a “new normal” because coronavirus will be with use for at least the next six months. (See 12.01pm.)

And he summarises his plans.

Scotland’s national clinical director, Jason Leitch, has confirmed that, because of the ban on household mixing, Scottish students cannot go home to stay with their parents, or to self-isolate there. He issued the clarification with this on Twitter.

The NUS Scotland president, Matt Crilley, told the Guardian:

We are really worried about hundreds of students having to self-isolate in tiny rooms, in unfamiliar cities with people they don’t know. Many of them will be first-years who have just moved away from their family networks and the onus really is on the universities and accommodation providers to support them, both for essentials like food and drink, but also with their mental health.

Updated

In the Commons this morning the equalities minister, Liz Truss, was challenged by a former Tory junior minister on whether she understood the “crushing disappointment of trans people” after the government dropped plans to allow people to officially change gender without a medical diagnosis.

Crispin Blunt, Conservative chair of the all-party parliamentary group on global LGBT+ rights, condemned Downing Street’s long-delayed response to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act consultation, labelling it an “inherently unstable settlement”.

Setting out the government’s position on Tuesday, Truss said the act struck the correct balance, “in that there are proper checks and balances in the system and also support for people who want to change their legal sex”.

Proposals developed under Theresa May’s government to allow people to “self-identify” as their chosen gender – by signing a statutory declaration without having to provide evidence of a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria – were not part of the government’s response.

Updated

NHS Test and Trace still not meeting key targets, latest figures show

As promised earlier, here is a summary of the main points in the weekly performance statistics (pdf) from NHS Test and Trace published this morning.

  • The proportion of people getting the results of in-person test results within 24 hours continues to fall. In the week ending 16 September, only 28.2% of people who got an in-person test at a local test site, a mobile unit or a regional test site, got the result within 24 hours. The previous week the figure was 33.3%. Performance on this measure has been falling since the start of August, and the service has never achieved the 24-hour turn-around promised by Boris Johnson in the Commons in early June. This chart shows the average time these test results take.
Time taken for test results
Time taken for test results Photograph: NHS Test and Trace

For tests undertaken by hospital laboratories (pillar 1 tests), 88.4% are turned around within 24 hours. But they only account for at most a third of all tests.

This figure is important because, until a positive result is confirmed, the test and trace system won’t kick in. The person with the symptoms may be self-isolating. But their contacts won’t know they are at risk, and the longer it takes for them to find out, they more time they have to infect other people.

  • NHS Test and Trace reached 74.7% of the people who were identified as close contacts of those who tested positive in the week ending 16 September. That was slightly down on the figure for the previous week (75.9%). Overall, since the service was launched in May, the figure has been 77.8%. In her evidence to the Commons science committee last week Dido Harding, head of the service, confirmed the target was 80%. Here are the figures.
% of close contacts reached and asked to self-isolate
% of close contacts reached and asked to self-isolate Photograph: NHS Test and Trace
  • NHS Test and Trace reached 83.8% of the people referred to the service because they tested positive so it could ask for details of their close contacts in the week ending 16 September. On this measure the service is meeting its 80% target. But overall, since May, the figure is 77.1% - below the target.

In his Commons statement Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, said the government had now spent £12bn on the service. This is from Sky’s Ed Conway.

Updated

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has put out a press release giving its assessment of the new job support scheme. It’s here.

Here’s an extract. (Bold type from the original.)

This is a much less generous scheme than the furlough scheme which it is replacing. It will also be much cheaper – though rather remarkably the Treasury has as yet given no indication of actual costs. In October employers have to pay just 20% of an employee’s normal wages and that employee need not work at all. From November support will only be available where employees are working at least a third of their normal hours. For an employee working a third of normal hours from November the employer will have to pay 55% of the normal wage costs.

Employees on the scheme will continue to be treated generously. They will receive 77% of their gross salary for doing a third of their normal hours. For most that will translate into well over 80% of their net pay. There will also be more help for the self-employed, likely in the form of another grant; although details are yet to be announced.

NHS England has recorded 30 more coronavirus hospital deaths. Those who died were aged between 18 and 101, and all but two of them had underlying health conditions, NHS England says. The details are here.

Updated

The backlog of criminal cases in magistrates courts increased by 44% compared with last year as the pandemic and lockdown prevented trials going ahead, according to the latest quarterly criminal court figures issued by the Ministry of Justice.

The scale of the challenge facing the courts system during the crisis is underlined by the statistics which show that by the end of June there were 422,000 cases waiting to be heard by magistrates in England and Wales.

Numbers are reported to have risen significantly since then. Some estimates suggested the magistrates’ backlog at one stage reached more than 480,000. The number is now coming down, according to the MoJ, as courts resume some activity.

In the crown courts, the backlog of outstanding cases rose by 25% over the year to the end of June, from 34,277 to 42,707. Part of that increase reflects cuts made to the number of judges’ sitting days by the courts service, HMCTS, due to austerity before the coronavirus crisis erupted.

“It is expected that outstanding case and trial vacation volumes will maintain these higher levels while the limited operation of the criminal courts remains in place and the gradual reintroduction of jury trials at the crown court from 18 May 2020 continues,” the MoJ statistics bulletin admits.

Updated

The events industry is bitterly disappointed that Rishi Sunak hasn’t announced targeted help to help them through the next six months.

Chris Skeith, CEO of the Association of Events Organisers, says the 600,000 people employed in the sector across the UK face an ‘existential’ threat [currently, only 6 people who don’t live together are allowed to socialise, and weddings are limited to 15 guests].

The chancellor’s proposals today fail to provide the support the UK events sector desperately needs. Given that no UK events are permitted to take place until March 2021 at the earliest, a wage subsidy is of little use to events businesses that are not able to trade at all and the sector is facing an existential threat to its viability.

Without targeted action the future looks bleak for a sector that employs 600,000 people across the UK, with widespread business insolvencies and job losses a certainty. This is a desperate day for the industry.

Updated

From Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies

A council worker wearing a safety vest marked ‘social distancing champion’ in Wrexham today.
A council worker wearing a safety vest marked ‘social distancing champion’ in Wrexham today. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters

Nadia Whittome, one of the three Labour MPs who lost her shadow junior frontbench role after defying the party whip at the second reading of the overseas operations bill, has released a statement justifying her actions with an emotive attack on the party’s leadership. She said:

This morning the leader of the opposition’s office called me to confirm that I have been stood down from my role.

I opposed the bill because it effectively decriminalises torture and makes it harder for veterans to take legal action against the government.

It is my heartfelt belief that a Labour government rooted in integrity, defence of human rights and the rule of law is the best way to achieve this for my constituents and the country.

Labour’s official position was to abstain on the second reading of the bill in the hope it could be amended subsequently, although that was something of a surprise given that John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, had previously called for it to be paused citing human rights concerns.

A total of 18 Labour MPs rebelled, headed by Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Rebecca Long-Bailey.

Updated

The Treasury has now published its full “Winter Economic Plan” document (pdf). There are only eight pages of text, but with a lot of white space they have padded the pdf out to 16 pages.

Wage subsidy scheme includes bar on redundancies and dividends curbs

Companies will not be allowed to use the government’s new Job Support Scheme to subsidise the wages of staff who are being made redundant.

And large companies who tap the scheme are discouraged from also handing money onto their shareholders, though dividends or share buybacks.

The Treasury’s Winter Economic Plan explains (we’ve bolded up those two key points):

To support viable UK employers who face lower demand due to COVID-19, and to keep their employees attached to the workforce, the government will be introducing a new Job Support Scheme from 1 November 2020. Employees will need to work a minimum of 33% of their usual hours.

For every hour not worked the employer and the government will each pay one third of the employee’s usual pay, and the government contribution will be capped at £697.92 per month. Employees using the scheme will receive at least 77% of their pay, where the government contribution has not been capped. The employer will be reimbursed in arrears for the government contribution. The employee must not be on a redundancy notice.

The scheme will run for six months from 1 November 2020 and is open to all employers with a UK bank account and a UK PAYE scheme. All Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) will be eligible; large businesses will be required to demonstrate that their business has been adversely affected by COVID-19, and the government expects that large employers will not be making capital distributions (such as dividends), while using the scheme.

BBC economics correspondent Andy Verity has tweeted about this too:

Coronavirus outbreaks at universities across Scotland, with more than a thousand students currently self-isolating, dominated FMQs.

Confirming a further 465 infections, Nicola Sturgeon said that “a large part” of the 219 cases in Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board reflected the significant cluster in student accommodation at Glasgow University.

Sturgeon said that the Scottish government would be setting out further measures to make sure guidance is “rigorously implemented” later today, following ongoing discussions with university vice-chancellors. She said that it was important that students understood their obligations but also that universities properly supported those who were self-isolating.

Sturgeon was pressed by opposition leaders on whether testing capacity was coping with the spike in demand. Ruth Davidson, leader of the Conservatives in the Scottish parliament, said more walk-in testing centres were needed, but the first minister said these were an important but “not the only part” of Scotland’s testing programme.

She insisted there were “no issues” with students getting tested with “capacity available and being utilised”, walk-in centres operating in Glasgow and St Andrews, with bookings for two further centres in Edinburgh and Aberdeen set to open in the coming days.

Students from the University of Glasgow today at a pop-up testing centre at the Murano Street Student Village complex in Glasgow.
Students from the University of Glasgow today at a pop-up testing centre at the Murano Street Student Village complex in Glasgow. Photograph: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

And here is some reaction to the announcement from business groups.

From Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the CBI

These bold steps from the Treasury will save hundreds of thousands of viable jobs this winter. Wage support, tax deferrals and help for the self-employed will reduce the scarring effect of unnecessary job losses as the UK tackles the virus. Further business rates relief should remain on the table.

From Jonathan Geldart, director general of the Institute of Directors

These new measures should bring some relief to many directors fearing a harsh winter for their businesses and people. As the virus wears on, the Treasury is right to seek a balance between protection and adjustment.

However, at first blush it’s not yet clear how much the job support scheme will help hard-pressed firms hold onto staff. The chancellor may also have missed a trick by not combining the Scheme with measures to encourage wider job creation, for instance by lowering employment costs through reduced employers’ NICs.

From British Chambers of Commerce director general Adam Marshall

The measures will give business and the economy an important shot in the arm.

From Mike Cherry, national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses

There are many measures to welcome here that will make a real difference. It’s particularly encouraging to see that all small businesses will be able to access the new job support scheme without facing excessive paperwork, with a guarantee of help for the next six months.

From Stephen Phipson, chief executive of Make UK

The priority right now has to be saving as many jobs as possible and this is a bold and brave move which industry will welcome.

From Paul Everitt, chief executive of aerospace trade group ADS

This new package will provide much-needed support for employees across our industries who are facing serious challenges.

Here is some reaction to the Sunak statement from trade unions.

From Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC

This scheme will provide a lifeline for many firms with a viable future beyond the pandemic.

But there’s still unfinished business. Unworked hours under the scheme must not be wasted. Ministers must work with business and unions to offer high-quality retraining, so workers are prepared for the future economy.

From the Unison general secretary Dave Prentis

These measures show the Chancellor has been listening to unions and businesses. Supporting the wages of workers is an important first step in the battle to protect jobs across the UK.

From Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union

Any support for jobs and key industries during this unprecedented global pandemic is to be welcomed. However, the chancellor’s measures are akin to using a plaster to cover a gaping wound.

From Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the TSSA union

We have called for bold action from government and remain concerned that six months is too short to really stabilise businesses and jobs, which so badly need support and would like clarity over who decides which businesses are viable.

From Paddy Lillis, general secretary of the shopworkers union Usdaw

We are pleased that the chancellor has eventually stepped back from the cliff-edge ending of the jobs retention scheme and we will study the details of the new jobs support scheme.

However we are very disappointed that he made no mention of the deep difficulties the retail industry faces.


Capital Economics: package could cost £5bn

Capital Economics has estimated that Rishi Sunak’s measures could cost £5bn ... and warned that they probably won’t stop the UK economy stagnating in the last three months of 2020.

Its UK economist, Ruth Gregory, fears the package will only “cushion the blow” from Covid-19.

She has estimated that the new wage subsidy scheme could “perhaps” cost £3bn, while extending the VAT cut to 5% for hospitality and tourism until 31 March might cost another £1.5bn. Giving businesses more time to make VAT payments, and extending the repayments on Bounce Back loans, will also have a cost.

If so, £5bn is a smaller cost than previous measures (the furlough scheme has covered over £39bn of wages this year, for example).

Gregory writes:

This means that the total cost of the government’s Covid-19 support could be in the region of £200bn (8.9% of GDP).

Once you add in the adverse effects on the public finances from the weak economy, the result could be that the chancellor ends up borrowing a whopping £370bn (18.4% of GDP) in 2020-21. That could push up the debt to GDP ratio from 88.4% in 2019-21 to 102%.

She adds that the new job support scheme will “temper the rise in unemployment”, but is still less generous than the furlough scheme (as under the new scheme, the company pays a minimum of 55% and the government pays a maximum of 22%).

Updated

These are from Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, a thinktank focusing on income inequality.

He says Rishi Sunak’s scheme will not incentivise all employers to minimise job losses by cutting hours - because for some of them it will be cheaper to keep fewer staff on full time.

Updated

This is from John McDonnell, the former Labour shadow chancellor.

Updated

In the Commons Sajid Javid, Rishi Sunak’s predecessor, praises Sunak for his “decisiveness, resilience and creativity”. He asks when the infrastructure investment plan will be published.

Sunak thanks Javid. He says he learnt much from working for him in two government departments. The infrastructure plan will be published in the autumn, he says.

And that’s the last question in the statement.

But we will be hearing more from Sunak later because he is holding a press conference this afternoon.

This is from Sky’s Tom Boadle, quoting from the Treasury briefing on the new job support scheme. The grant per worker will be capped at £697.92 per month, it says.

Updated

IFS: Many furloughed workers will lose jobs

Paul Johnson, the head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank, says Rishi Sunak’s new support package won’t prevent many furloughed workers from being laid off.

Johnson fears that many jobs will now be lost once the furlough scheme ends in October, because struggling companies can’t justify bringing them back part-time.

He has tweeted that Sunak’s new scheme is less generous than the furlough scheme, and will mean job losses.

There are thought to be around three million people still furloughed (the ONS said this morning that 12% of workers were using the scheme, either part or full-time)

Back in the Commons Stephen Crabb, the Tory former work and pensions secretary, asks for an assurance that the increase to universal credit announced at the start of the crisis will be made permanent.

Sunak avoids giving that commitment, although he stresses what the government has done already, and he says that a Treasury distributional impact assessment published earlier in the year showed that low income families were benefiting most from its support measures.

This is from Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary.

The CBI has welcomed Rishi Sunak’s job support package.

CBI director-general Carolyn Fairbairn (who joined the photocall outside 11 Downing Street with the chancellor this morning) says it should save hundreds of thousands of jobs.

“These bold steps from the Treasury will save hundreds of thousands of viable jobs this Winter.

It is right to target help on jobs with a future, but can only be part-time while demand remains flat.”

“Wage support, tax deferrals and help for the self-employed will reduce the scarring effect of unnecessary job losses as the UK tackles the virus. Further business rates relief should remain on the table.

Updated

Alison Thewliss, the SNP Treasury spokeswoman, says Sunak did not tell the finance ministers in the devolved administrations he was cancelling the budget. Does he realise what impact this has on those administrations, which need to know what is in the UK budget?

Sunak says the chief secretary to the Treasury regularly speaks to the devolved administrations. But he says there is no reason why the UK government has to set its budget before they set theirs.

Sunak's job support scheme: the key points

Having warned that he cannot save every business or every job threatened by the pandemic, Rishi Sunak has outlined a four-point plan to help the economy through a tough winter.
1) A new wage subsidy scheme, to encourage struggling firms to keep people on short-term hours [corrected], rather than making them redundant.

It’s designed to protect viable jobs over next six months after the furlough scheme ends in October. Employees must work at least one third of their hours, and be paid for them.

Then, they’ll be paid two-thirds of their pay for the remaining hours (with the employer and the government paying one-third each). So people will still see lower take-home pay - with the Treasury saying someone who works 33% of their hours would get 77% of their wages.

But, this won’t help companies who don’t have enough work to bring staff back part-time (such as in the leisure and hospitality industry).

UPDATE: The Treasury has said the level of grant will be calculated based on employee’s usual salary, capped at £697.92 per month.

Notably, all small and medium-sized firms are eligible - but large firms are only eligible if their turnover has fallen in the pandemic.

2) A “Pay as you grow scheme” to help businesses whose trading has been hurt by the pandemic. Small firms can extend their bounceback loans for a decade, from 6 years, which should halve their monthly repayments, and make interest-only payments if needed. That’s an indication of the long-term damage from the pandemic.

3) More help for the hospitality sector, which has been worst hit by the crisis. Extending the cut in the VAT rate to 5% until March 31 2021 will let them retain more revenue.

4) Deferred VAT bills, with the chancellor letting businesses spread out their VAT bill over eleven smaller payments. That avoids a cash crunch in March next year, which could have hit the economy.

Updated

Sunak is responding to Dodds.

He says Labour has repeatedly changed its position on extending the furlough scheme. He says that is not the sort of consistency that business needs.

He says the new scheme will incentivise short-term working.

Details will be published in due course, he says.

He says conditionality will apply. Support will aimed where it is most needed. Large firms will only get access to the scheme subject to certain conditions.

Firms will not be allowed to make staff redundant while they are on the scheme, he says.

He says the government published a £30bn plan for jobs in July. The Kick Start scheme is a key part of that, he says. He says employers are using that now.

He says Labour wanted the furlough scheme extended. But they did not say for how long. Then they wanted it replaced. But they did not say with what. Then they said they wanted it targeted. But they did not say for whom.

He says he is willing to work with Labour - if they can decide what they want.

Yesterday Sir Keir Starmer called for a plan B, he says. But the opposition don’t even have a plan A, he says.

Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, is responding for Labour.

She says Labour has repeatedly called for an extension of wage support beyond October.

Will the scheme incentivise short-term working?

Will it incentivise training and re-training? The German scheme does, she says.

Labour welcomes many elements of what the chancellor is announcing. But Sunak only mentioned training once, she says.

Sunak says 'we must learn to live without fear'

Sunak says Britain can no longer go on putting its life on hold.

The country must learn to live with coronavirus, he says.

Today’s measures mark an important evolution in our approach. Our lives can no longer be put on hold. Since May we have taken steps to liberate our economy and society.

We did these things because life means more than simply existing. We find meaning and hope through our friends and family, through our work and our community.

People were not wrong for wanting that meaning, for striking towards normality, and nor was the government wrong to want this for them.

The truth is the responsibility for defeating coronavirus cannot be held by government alone. It is a collective responsibility shared by all because the cost is paid by all ...

We must learn to live with [coronavirus], and live without fear.

Updated

Sunak extends VAT cut for hospitality and tourism sector until end of March

Sunak says the VAT cut for hospitality and tourism has been extended to the end of March next year.

The final step I’m taking today will support two of the most affected sectors, hospitality and tourism.

On current plans, their VAT rates will increase from 5% back to the standard rate of 20% on January 13.

So to support more than 150,000 businesses and help protect 2.4 million jobs through the winter, I’m announcing today that we are cancelling the planned increase and will keep the lower 5% VAT rate until March 31 next year.

Updated

Sunak is announcing the extension of other loan and support schemes.

UPDATE: Sunak said:

I am extending the existing self-employed grant on similar terms and conditions as the new jobs support scheme ...

He said bounce back loans have given more than one million small businesses a £38bn boost to survive, adding a “pay as you grow” scheme would be introduced to give these firms more time to repay the loans.

This means loans can now be extended from six to 10 years, nearly halving the average monthly repayment.

Businesses who are struggling can now choose to make interest-only payments and anyone in real trouble can apply to suspend repayments all together for up to six months.

No business taking up pay as you grow will see their credit rating affected as a result.

Updated

Sunak says the government has never tried anything like this.

Sunak says in the spring the problem was that businesses were closed.

Now the problem is different. Businesses are open. But their future is fragile.

He says he is announcing a new jobs support scheme. It will allow firms to preserve viable jobs.

The government will directly support the wages of people in work, giving businesses who face depressed demand the option of keeping employees in a job on shorter hours rather than making them redundant.

He says it will have three features.

The jobs support scheme is built on three principles.

First, it will support viable jobs. To make sure of that employees must work at least a third of their normal hours and be paid for that work as normal by their employer. The government, together with employers, will then increase those people’s wages covering two-thirds of the pay they have lost by reducing their working hours, and the employee will keep their job.

Second, we will target support at firms who need it the most. All small and medium-sized businesses are eligible but larger businesses only when their turnover has fallen through the crisis.

Third, it will be open to employers across the United Kingdom, even if they have not previously used the furlough scheme.

The scheme will run for six months starting in November and employers retaining furloughed staff on shorter hours can claim both the jobs support scheme and the jobs retention bonus.

Updated

Sunak says economy will need 'more permanent' adjustment because Covid will be here for at least six more months

Sunak says he will explain what is being done to protect jobs during the winter.

But the rationale for this stage is different from what came before.

In March they thought they were facing a temporary period of disruption, he says.

It is now clear, as the PM and the scientific advisers have said, that “for at least the next six months” the virus will be a fact of life.

The economy will need “a more permanent” adjustment, he says.

Our economy is now likely to undergo a more permanent adjustment. The sources of our economic growth and the kinds of jobs we create will adapt and evolve to the new normal.

And our plan needs to adapt and evolve in response. Above all, we need to face up to the trade offs and hard choices coronavirus presents and there has been no harder choice than to end the furlough scheme.

The furlough was the right policy at the time we introduced it, it provided immediate short-term protection for millions of jobs through a period of acute crisis.

But as the economy re-opens it is fundamentally wrong to hold people in jobs that only exist inside the furlough.

Updated

Sunak says government has now spent £12bn on test and trace

Sunak starts by saying the PM set out the next stage of the government’s health response to Covid. Today Sunak will set out the next stage of the economic response, he says.

He says the balance the need to protect jobs against the need to fight the virus.

There are reasons to be “cautiously optimistic”, he says. We know more about the virus than in March. Public awareness is better. And the NHS has been given what it needs.

He says £12bn has now been spent on test and trace.

Rishi Sunak's Commons statement

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is about to deliver his Commons statement on his winter economy plan.

NHS Test and Trace (to use its official name, although critics say it should be called Serco Test and Trace) has published its weekly performance statistics (pdf).

These are from Sky’s Ed Conway. I will post more on the data after Rishi Sunak’s statement, which is starting very soon.

More than a million days of work were lost in the NHS in England due to coronavirus-related sickness between March and May, according to new official figures.

The figures, released by NHS Digital, show that 1.3m full-time equivalent (FTE) days were lost due to Covid-related sickness absence in those three months.

The data showed that during the peak of the pandemic in April there were 690,569 FTE days lost due to Covid-19, which was the highest sickness absence rate among NHS staff in England in more than a decade.

In May, 340,900 FTE days were lost due to Covid-related sickness, equating to 18.9% of all absences recorded. This is compared with 30.6% in April 2020 and 15.9% in March 2020.

The London region reported the highest Covid-related sickness absences as a proportion of all FTE days lost through absence in both March at 26% and April at 40%, but in May the highest related sickness absence was in the south-east, where it was 25.8%.

Updated

This morning Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said that almost 10,000 people a day in the UK may be contracting coronavirus. Yesterday 6,178 new cases were reported, but not everyone with the virus gets tested.

But Dr Julian Tang, honorary associate professor of respiratory sciences at the University of Leicester, has said that the number of new cases is likely to be higher than Hancock suggested.

As PA Media reports, Tang said findings from the Real-Time Assessment of Community Transmission (React-1) study, a large population survey examining the prevalence of coronavirus in England, showed that “up to two-thirds (60-70%) of Covid-19 cases may be asymptomatic”. He said that if there are 6,000 known daily cases then there could be “additional” infections of around 12,000 “we haven’t identified yet”. He added:

So the symptomatic cases that go for PCR [polymerase chain reaction] testing may only constitute just one-third of Covid-19 cases.

Bus drivers need more help over the wearing of face coverings as fines against passengers ignoring the law are “vanishingly rare”, according to a leading union. As PA Media reports, Unite warned that new penalties for people refusing to wear a mask may make “little difference” unless enforcement is properly resourced. The union, which represents more than 70,000 bus drivers across the UK, said its research suggested that just 38 fines or fixed penalty notices were issued outside London in the three months to August, and 368 in the capital.

Passengers boarding a bus in London.
Passengers boarding a bus in London. Photograph: Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

Rishi Sunak will hold a press conference this afternoon, No 10 has announced.

A race equality action plan designed to tackle the “structural and systemic racism” found to have contributed to the high Covid death rate among black, Asian and minority ethnic people in Wales is under way and will be complete early next year.

A report published earlier this year said that long-standing racism and disadvantage was a major reason behind so many people from BAME backgrounds falling critically ill.

Detailing a raft of measures to tackle the crisis on Thursday, the Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, said the report had been “sobering and powerful”, adding:

We have to look carefully and honestly at the structures and systems in society.

Our work to develop a race equality action plan is already under way, and will provide the foundation for bringing about systemic and sustainable change for Wales.

Other actions the government has taken include making Covid-19 ‘Keep Wales Safe’ communications available in 36 languages and funding a BAME advice helpline.

CBI and TUC bosses join Sunak for photocall ahead of winter economy plan announcement

On budget day it’s traditional for the chancellor to pose for a photograph outside No 11 with his red box and his Treasury team. There is no red box today, but there does seem to be a winter economy plan document, which Rishi Sunak was holding when he had his picture taken in Downing Street a few minutes ago.

Much more interesting was his decision to stage the photocall with Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, and Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the CBI. The Treasury has been consulting both organisations ahead of today’s announcement. That in itself is not particularly unusual, but to get both of them to sign up to pre-announcement endorsement-by-photocall is striking.

It is also very one nation Conservative. (Dominic Cummings probably won’t approve - he loathes the CBI.) It’s also a bit 1970s, reminiscent of when No 10 used the National Economic Development Office - aka “Neddy” - to run the economy in harness with business and the unions.

Rishi Sunak with Carolyn Fairbairn (right) and Frances O’Grady outside No 11.
Rishi Sunak with Carolyn Fairbairn (right) and Frances O’Grady outside No 11. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

These are from Matt Hancock, promoting a video about the NHS Covid-19 app just launched for England.

The ONS has this morning published a useful coronavirus article - Covid-19 in 10 charts.

Here are three of the most striking.

Excess deaths

Excess deaths, week by week
Excess deaths, week by week Photograph: ONS

Covid death rates by age and ethnicity

Covid death rates by age and ethnicity
Covid death rates by age and ethnicity Photograph: ONS

Impact of Covid on different sectors of the economy

Impact of Covid on different sectors of the economy
Impact of Covid on different sectors of the economy Photograph: ONS

The Covid crisis has left businesses little time to plan for Brexit with just 38% saying they have done a risk assessment for the change in trading conditions next January, the British Chambers of Commerce has said.

It said the government has addressed just nine of the 35 issues which apply to businesses, deal or no deal, with no clarity on food labelling, replacement of EU funding or rules of origin.

BCC director Adam Marshall said:

While we recognise that some of the questions facing businesses are subject to ongoing negotiations between the government and the EU, other matters are within the UK’s hands. The government must ramp up engagement with business urgently.

In his interview with Sky News Matt Hancock, the health secretary, was also asked if he could clarify whether or not the government was trying to stop casual sex on the grounds that it poses a Covid health risk. The question has been raised by recent updated guidance saying that people who do not live together but who are in an “established relationship” don’t need to self-isolate.

Hancock did not want to be drawn on what was and wasn’t an established relationship, and just stuck to the guidance. He told Sky’s Kay Burley:

I think we should stick to the letter of it, which is it is okay in an established relationship. It just means that people need to be careful, they need to be sensible.

If you’re in a relationship that is well established ... what it means is people realising that coming into close contact with people from other households, then that is how the virus spreads.

UPDATE: Here’s a clip.

Updated

Advice from contact-tracing app to self-isolate won't be legal requirement, says Hancock

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, was doing the morning interview round for the government to promote the new contact-tracing app launched in England.

He said that, although people advised by the app to self-isolate because they had been close to a person testing positive should follow that advice, it was not a legal requirement - unlike an instruction from NHS Test and Trace. He told Times Radio:

If the app tells you to self-isolate, then you should self-isolate. But if an NHS Test and Trace contact tracer tells you, then you must by law.

He rejected reports that the app might generate false positives - telling people they been close to someone testing positive when they hadn’t.

And he told the BBC that the more people downloaded it, the more effective it would be.

In a separate interview Scotland’s national clinical director, Prof Jason Leitch, said research showed that a contact-tracing app had to be downloaded by 15% of the population “to start to make a difference to actual harm and death”.

In Scotland 15% of the adult population would be around 689,000 people. But the Scottish government’s app has been downloaded by 1.2m people in the 10 days since it was launched, Leitch said.

Hancock and Scottish health chief don't rule out students being asked to stay away from home at Christmas

According to a report in the i, government scientists think students might have to stay at university at Christmas, instead of going home, to reduce the risk of their spreading coronavirus to their relatives and local communities.

Asked if this would happen, Matt Hancock, the health secretary for England, told the Today programme this morning that he was not ruling it out. He said:

I don’t want to have a situation like that, and I very much hope we can avoid it.

Asked if the proposal was under consideration, he said:

I’ve learned not to rule things out. And one of the challenges we have is making sure that people are as safe as possible and that includes not spreading between the generations, but ... this is not our goal.

Scotland’s national clinical director, Prof Jason Leitch, also told the Today programme that a measure like this might be necessary in Scotland. Asked if he would like students to stay away from home at Christmas, he replied:

I would like them to think very, very carefully about weekends at home, and think about how they can make that as safe as they can.

I think we will have to take a view in the next couple of months about what we do at Christmas time.

I think asking everybody to stay in their halls of residence for the two-week holiday period over Christmas is unrealistic. But we will have to put in place something that keeps us safe. But we will have to do that for you and I too. Christmas is going to be a difficult period to live with Covid.

Sturgeon says more restrictions may be needed to bring virus under control

Nicola Sturgeon has written to Boris Johnson calling for urgent four-nation talks to reach a UK-wide consensus on tightening restrictions ever further.

More detail from Nicola Sturgeon’s letter to Boris Johnson emerged overnight, in which she writes:

While all four governments announced new restrictions yesterday, there is clearly a significant strand of scientific opinion to the effect that bringing R back below one and the virus back under control will require measures beyond those which any of us have so far announced. In my view, there is considerable force in that opinion.

Sturgeon said talks should cover whether it is possible to reach four nations agreement on what further restrictions are necessary and what economic arrangements could be put in place to ensure that devolved administrations were not constrained when making what they judge to be essential public health decisions.

Nicola Sturgeon.
Nicola Sturgeon. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Concerns about Scotland’s economic capacity to deal with increasing infection rates were also raised by finance minister Kate Forbes, who said that the UK Treasury’s decision to scrap the autumn budget showed “breath-taking disregard” for the devolved administrations, after she was given no advance notice of the announcement.

The Scottish government relies on the UK budget to set its own spending plans, since the majority of its funding is determined by the block grant and its taxes perform relative to the UK’s.

Forbes to BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland:

We’ve been battled Covid, because of the devolution settlement, with one hand tied behind our backs. Without a UK budget this year we’d have both hands tied behind our backs ...

At a time of unprecedented change my counterparts in Wales and Northern Ireland and myself are absolutely clear that to be expected to set budgets in the devolved governments for the NHS, local governments, tax rates, without information from the UK government just does not understand the challenges.

Kate Forbes, Scotland’s finance minister.
Kate Forbes, Scotland’s finance minister. Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

Almost 10,000 people a day contracting Covid in UK, Hancock says

Almost 10,000 people a day in the UK are contracting coronavirus, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has warned, as Scotland’s first minister requested urgent talks with the UK government to consider further tighten social restrictions. My colleague Jessica Elgot has the story here.

Covid crisis likely to cost government £317bn this year, says thinktank

Good morning. Rishi Sunak is today announcing what he calls his winter economy plan, which will explain what will be done to support jobs and businesses when the furlough scheme runs out at the end of next month. He has also cancelled the budget due in the autumn (by my count, the fourth time the Boris Johnson government has postponed a budget) and today’s announcement is being seen as budget-like in its importance. In fact, it will probably turned out to be much bigger. In a normal year, a budget is seen as far-reaching if it cuts or increases spending by £5bn or more. The furlough scheme, announced outside a budget, has cost the Treasury £39bn.

But that’s just a fraction of the overall cost of the Covid crisis to the exchequer. Today the Institute for Government thinktank has published a report saying “Covid-19 is already likely to cost the UK government £317bn – in increased public borrowing – in 2020/21 alone.” This chart explains where those numbers come from.

Cost of Covid crisis
Cost of Covid crisis Photograph: IfG

Here is our preview of the Sunak statement by Larry Elliott and Richard Partington.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.10am: Suella Braverman, the attorney general, takes questions in the Commons.

Morning: The latest weekly NHS Test and Trace performance statistics are published.

After 12pm: Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, delivers his Commons statement on fresh support for jobs and businesses.

12.20pm: Nicola Sturgeon takes first minister’s questions in the Scottish parliament.

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. We will be covering non-Covid political stories too, but today we will be largely focusing on Sunak’s statement, and the reaction to it.

Here is my colleague Graeme Wearden’s business live blog. Graeme will be contributing here later as we cover the Sunak announcement.

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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