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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow (now) and Kevin Rawlinson (earlier)

UK coronavirus: cases jump by 1,508 in a day; government U-turns on Bolton and Trafford lockdown - as it happened

Members of the public wear masks as they walk through Bolton town centre the day the government U-turned on lockdown loosening.
Members of the public wear masks as they walk through Bolton town centre the day the government U-turned on lockdown loosening. Photograph: James Speakman/Mercury Press

Afternoon summary

  • Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has warned Conservative MPs that some tax rises may be needed to “correct” the public finances after the coronavirus crisis. But he also said he was not proposing “a horror show of tax rises with no end in sight”. (See 3.01pm.) He spoke out after days of media speculation about what will be in his autumn budget, with some reports claiming that the tax burden may have to rise by £30bn. The crisis has pushed the national debt above £2tn for the first time, and in July the Office for Budget Responsibility put the budget deficit (the annual shortfall, rather than the total historic debt owed by the UK) at £128bn. Although the budget is still many weeks away, an intense debate is already under way in the Conservative party as to what should be in it. Earlier Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, suggested Sunak should be cutting taxes, not raising them. Labour has said it does not support tax increases now. (See 1.42pm.)
  • The government has reimposed lockdown restrictions on half a million people in Greater Manchester just 12 hours after they were lifted, after a rise in infections. Ironically, the announcement was made during PMQs, just after Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, and Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, taunted Johnson about the many coronavirus U-turns he had already performed.
  • Ofqual’s senior leadership told MPs that Ofqual should not be blamed for the fiasco that engulfed this summer’s exams in England, and accused the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, of causing the weekend of chaos that followed the publication of A-level results.
  • The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has said he is “worried and disappointed” over the UK’s approach to the talks, fuelling fears that the UK will leave the bloc in January without a deal.
  • A data specialist recruited to the civil service following Dominic Cummings’ call for “weirdos and misfits” to work for the UK government was sacked recently after posting on social media that police should use live rounds against Black Lives Matter demonstrators, the Guardian can reveal.
  • Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary in charge of the newly merged Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, has moved to quash reports that the government will ditch its statutory commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on aid.
  • The Scottish Labour leader, Richard Leonard, is under intense pressure to quit after senior MSPs said the party faced “catastrophic defeat” in next year’s Holyrood elections.

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

Updated

UK coronavirus cases rise by 1,508 in 24 hours

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

  • A further 10 UK coronavirus deaths have been recorded, taking the headline total to 41,514. But this chart only records people who have died within 28 days of a coronavirus tests, and so it significantly understates the true number of coronavirus deaths in the UK. Taking into account all deaths where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate, there have been 57,310 deaths in the UK. (See 11.56am.)
  • A further 1,508 coronavirus cases in the UK have been recorded. This confirms that, overall, case numbers are still rising.

Updated

These are from my colleague Peter Walker, who is outside the Commons committee room where Boris Johnson is addressing the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee.

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has said talk of taxes going up is “pure speculation”, Sky’s Aubrey Allegretti reports.

In Westminster politics, the word “speculation” is sometimes used to mean real, actual speculation. But more often it is used as a piece of Whitehall-speak, a form of non-denial denial, to refer to something that is actually planned, or at least anticipated, but that cannot yet be confirmed.

Updated

The Commons education committee has published a transcript of its hearing this morning with the Ofqual chair, Roger Taylor, and his colleagues. There is a link here.

(It normally takes a bit longer for committee transcripts to materialise.)

A data specialist recruited to the civil service following Dominic Cummings’ call for “weirdos and misfits” to work for the UK government was sacked recently after posting on social media that police should use live rounds against Black Lives Matter demonstrators, the Guardian can reveal. The full story is here.

This week’s Guardian Politics Weekly podcast is out. Jessica Elgot chats to Peter Walker after the first prime minister’s questions following the summer recess. MPs tell us about their thoughts as they head back to Westminster, and Anne Alexander explains why UK democracy requires more black political journalists. It’s here.

The UK risks crashing out of the EU without a trade deal by refusing to compromise and break the deadlock in post-Brexit negotiations, Michel Barnier has warned. As PA Media reports, Brussels’ chief negotiator said that he was “worried and disappointed” after his counterpart in Downing Street, David Frost, did not make any concessions to end the impasse during informal talks.

Barnier reiterated that a deal must be brokered by the “strict deadline” of the end of next month in order to have it in place for the close of the transition period on 31 December. At an online event hosted by Dublin’s Institute of International and European Affairs thinktank, Barnier said:

We need a breakthrough, we need to move.

If the UK wants a deal with us and a fair agreement for a zero-tariff, zero-quota access for British access to our market of 450 million consumers then they will have to move and it is their choice, it is their responsibility.

We are ready to make fair and constructive compromise but not at the detriment of the EU.

Updated

Pupils washing their hands earlier today on the first day back to school at Outwood Academy Adwick in Doncaster.
Pupils washing their hands earlier today on the first day back to school at Outwood Academy Adwick in Doncaster. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Johnson claims UK going through 'orgy of national embarrassment'

Here is a fuller version of the quote from Boris Johnson when he told Conservative MPs from the 2019 intake that the political situation was going to get tougher. (See 3.25pm.) Johnson said:

I know it’s been tough.

I’ve got to warn you it’s about to get tougher. The waters are about to get choppier. But we are going to deal with it.

And when we build back better and faster and greener we will create a platform for the dynamism and innovation and enterprise to flourish and to create new jobs.

He also told them the Conservative party should “speak out loud and proud” for the UK’s history, amid an “orgy of national embarrassment”. He said:

I do think this country is going through an orgy of national embarrassment about some of the things that other people around the world love most about us.

People love our traditions and our history with all its imperfections. It’s crazy for us to go around trying to censor it. It’s absolutely absurd and I think we should speak out loud and proud for the UK and our history.

Johnson was clearly referring to the row about whether Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory should be sung at the Last Night of the Proms. But the row was to a large extent confected by the media, because few people were calling for the songs to be dropped, and the BBC said its original decision to drop the singing (but not the tunes) was for Covid-related reasons. Now the BBC has said the words will be sung after all.

Updated

NHS England has recorded seven further coronavirus hospital deaths. Three were in the Midlands, two in the north-west and one in the south-east. The details are here.

In Scotland one further death has been reported. And Northern Ireland has also recorded one further death.

There have been no further deaths in Wales.

Updated

There have been at least 16 confirmed cases of Covid-19 involving three different parties who flew back to Cardiff on a TUI flight (no 6215) from Zante on 25 August, Public Health Wales (PHW) has said.

Seven out of the 16 were infectious at the time of flying. As a result, PHW is advising that all passengers on this flight are considered close contacts and must self-isolate.

Dr Robin Howe, incident director for the Covid-19 outbreak response at PHW, said:

Our investigations into a number of cases of coronavirus have indicated that a lack of social distancing, in particular by a minority of the 20-30 year age group, has resulted in the spread of the virus to other groups of people.

I would make a direct appeal to young people to remember that even if they feel that they would not be badly affected by Covid-19 were they to test positive, should they pass it on to older or more vulnerable family members, friends or colleagues it could be extremely serious and even fatal.

Updated

Wirral records big increase in coronavirus cases

Eighty people have tested positive for Covid-19 in Wirral over the past week, many of them young women, according to the local authority.

Julie Webster, director of public health for Wirral council, said: “This is a big increase, from the two cases a day we were seeing at the beginning of August.”

There is no particular source for therise, with cases linked to pubs, gyms and care homes, she said.

There has been a noticeable increase in young women under the age of 30 testing positive, as well as people in the same households, said Webster.

Wirral’s infection rate is now 24.7 per 100,000 people — which puts it higher than many other places on the government’s “watch list” of areas giving cause for concern.

Updated

In his address to Conservative MPs from the 2019 intake (see 3.01pm) Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, said that economic competence was the party’s key advantage over Labour, a nod to how the party has been losing ground to Keir Starmer’s party in the polls. He told MPs, many of whom have slim majorities in traditionally Labour areas, that there would be a clear difference on tax between the Conservatives and Labour. He said:

We cannot, will not and must not surrender our position as the party of economic competence and sound finance. If we argue instead that there is no limit to what we can spend, that we can simply borrow our way out of any hole then what is the difference between us and Labour?

He also stressed his belief in a “dynamic low-tax economy” – a phrase designed to counters rumours that the Treasury is planning significant hikes in corporation tax, fuel duty, capital gains tax or self-employed national insurance contributions, all likely to be opposed by different wings of the rank-and-file party.

Rishi Sunak (right) with Boris Johnson at cabinet yesterday.
Rishi Sunak (right) with Boris Johnson at cabinet yesterday. Photograph: Toby Melville/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

The former Welsh first minister, Carwyn Jones, has expressed concern that a rise in support for independence in Scotland and England could lead to a “chaotic” breakup of the UK.

Jones, who served as first minister until 2018, said Brexit could result in Scotland and England breaking away and accused the UK government of not understanding the pressure on the union.

Speaking as he launched his biography, Not Just Politics, Jones said:

I don’t think the UK will be sustainable without Scotland. My great fear is that if Scotland goes, there’s no reason why England might not also leave the UK. I worry about the possible rise in English nationalism that would lead to that.

Wales might find itself in a situation where both England and Scotland have left. This is a scenario that a few years ago would have been unlikely in the extreme. With Brexit and with the possibility of Scotland leaving the UK all manner of strange things become possible.

We see a rise in English identify as opposed to British identity. My fear is that if Scotland went, it would cause a backlash in England that would lead some people to say: ‘Why can’t we in England be independent. Why are we stuck with the Welsh and Northern Ireland?’

If Scotland leaves, what do you call the country that is left? What flag do you have? Everything that we have known starts to unravel.

Jones said a breakup of the union would cause financial hardship in Wales and difficulties on both sides of the England/Wales border. “It leads to chaos, it’s in nobody’s interests,” he said.

Updated

Getting all workers back into offices now not possible, says Bank of England

The Bank of England’s executive director for financial stability, strategy and risk has told the Treasury committee it simply isn’t possible for all office workers to return to their desks yet.

Alex Brazier told MPs that public health worries – and the challenge of complying with public health guidelines – meant the return to work would be gradual.

Brazier was asked about the reluctance of major financial institutions to bring employees back to the office. He explained there were two reasons:

The first is people have a caution about the public health issues. I feel safe coming to work, but I quite understand why many people might not. Public transport capacity is a related factor there …

[Secondly] it’s not possible to use office space, particularly in central London and dense places like that, with the intensity that we used to use it. It’s not possible to bring lots of people back very suddenly.

Brazier added that we should expect “a more phased return”, depending on the public health outcomes we see in coming weeks and months.

There is more from the Treasury committee hearing, which is still going on, on our business live blog. It’s here.

Updated

And, according to the Times’s Steven Swinford, Boris Johnson told Tory MPs that the political situation was going to get tougher for them before it got better when he addressed the 2019 intake.

Sunak warns Tory MPs taxes may rise, saying 'difficult things' will be needed to 'correct public finances'

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, have both been speaking to Conservative MPs from the 2019 intake this afternoon. Steve Back, a photographer who covers Downing Street and who tweets as @PoliticalPics, managed to get a picture of Sunak’s speaking notes as he was leaving No 11.

This is what the note says.

We will need to do some difficult things, but I promise you, if we trust one another, we will be able to overcome the short term challenges.

Now this doesn’t mean a horror show of tax rises with no end in sight.

But it does mean treating the British people with respect, being honest with them about the challenges we face, and showing them how we plan to correct out public finances and give our country the dynamic, low-tax economy we all want to see.

This is what we will deliver for you.

Perhaps the note was left exposed inadvertently, although this happens so often now that it must be quite likely that Sunak wanted this quote to go public.

Sunak is due to deliver a budget in the autumn, and for the last few days now Conservative-leaning papers have been full of stories about possible tax increases that the government might introduce. “Treasury officials are drawing up plans for a £30bn tax raid on the wealthy, businesses, pensions and foreign aid — to plug a hole in the nation’s finances caused by the coronavirus crisis,” the Sunday Times reported. Fuel duty and national insurance for the self-employed have also been identified as areas where taxes may rise. It is hard to know how many of these proposals are being seriously considered, and how many are being briefed by people hoping a newspaper backlash will lead to them being ruled out, but Sunak’s note suggest some tax increases or spending cuts are in the pipeline.

Interestingly, Labour is ruling out tax increases at this point. (See 1.42pm.) But whether the opposition would in practice vote against, say, a proposal to increase corporation tax (an option Sunak is considering, according to the Sunday Times, and a Labour manifesto policy in 2019), is another matter.

UPDATE: Treasury sources have confirmed that that this was Sunak’s speaking note for the meeting, and that he did deliver words along these lines. But it was a meeting of Conservative MPs from the 2019 intake, not a meeting of the 1922 Committee as the first paragraph of this post originally said. (It’s now been corrected.)

Updated

Earlier, when I covered what Boris Johnson said in response to the point of order from Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, complaining about No 10 blaming Blackford for leaking the location of Johnson’s Scottish holiday (see 12.43pm), I did not quote what Johnson said in full, and I missed a section that made Blackford’s complaint sound a bit less justified than it otherwise did. That was not intentional, I just missed the full quote. But here it is.

In response to Blackford, Johnson said:

However, I just draw his attention … to a tweet by a chap called Torcuil Crichton on August 17 saying: ‘Ferocious midge count in Wester Ross tonight, I hear. Must be bad if you’re fair-skinned and camping’ to which an account, which purports to be (Mr Blackford) but I’m sure it isn’t because of what he’s just said, says ‘I wonder if an education at Eton stands you in good stead for these blighters’.

Anyway, I’m happy to accept his assurances and protestations and I think we should leave it at that.

This certainly looks like a reference to Johnson, although it does not in any way prove that Blackford revealed the location of Johnson’s holiday home to journalists. Wester Ross is not exactly a small place.

Updated

The chair of Scottish Labour, Cara Hilton, has given her backing to party leader, Richard Leonard, after three MSPs called for him to stand down after Labour’s support plummeted in the polls.

Hilton urged the party to rally behind Leonard and chided the three rebels, James Kelly, Daniel Johnson and Jenny Marra, for undermining him so close to a Scottish parliamentary election.

With party sources adamant Leonard would remain in post, Hilton tweeted that the party should be “100% focused” on fighting the Scottish National party and the Tories.

Earlier Rhoda Grant, a Labour list MSP for Highlands and Islands, also tweeted her support. She said: “The crisis facing our country requires bold thinking and it requires a united Scottish Labour party, under the leadership of Richard Leonard, fighting for the real change we need.”

Leonard was teased about the revolt by Nicola Sturgeon during first minister’s questions after she had first acknowledged Labour could claim credit for the national care service she plans to create.

Asked about a review on policy on care homes during the coronavirus pandemic, she said that would report in January, but added: “I’m not sure whether Richard Leonard will still be standing in his place by then, we will wait and see.”

Updated

Pandemic may have hastened non-Covid deaths in England and Wales

The deaths of thousands of people in England and Wales may have been hastened at the height of the coronavirus pandemic although their deaths were not registered as Covid-19 related, my colleague Pamela Duncan reports. More than 96,000 non-Covid-19 deaths were registered between 7 March and 1 May 2020, 12,774 more than the five-year average, or 15.3%. A further 33,602 Covid-19 deaths occurred in the same period. Her full story is here.

Turning back to this morning’s evidence to the Commons education committee from Ofqual (see 11.23am), Labour says Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, should now explain to MPs why he tried to blame the exams regulator for the grading debacle. In a statement Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, said:

The evidence given by Ofqual today has raised serious questions about Gavin Williamson’s role in this summer’s exam fiasco.

Gavin Williamson has repeatedly tried to blame Ofqual and officials for the crisis over exams. It is now clear he was responsible.

Williamson must urgently come to the Commons to offer an explanation and to take responsibility for his own incompetence.

Ireland has adjusted its exam grading system to avoid repeating the UK’s A-level results fiasco.

The government this week decided to leave teachers’ estimated grades largely unchanged and to not rely on a school’s previous performance in the calculated grades process.

The decisions will leave the estimated grades of 79% of Leaving Certificate students unchanged, according to initial data from the department of education. Some 17% will have have grades reduced, in most cases by one grade, and 4% will have grades increased.

The 60,000 students are to receive their final results next Monday, after which college places will be allocated.

Teachers awarded more than twice the number of the top H1 grades than would have been expected in normal Leaving Cert results, producing grade inflation, but Irish officials refrained from major intervention after the UK’s bungled attempt to produce results that conformed with previous years.

At first minister’s questions in Edinburgh Nicola Sturgeon emphasised that new indoor gathering restrictions in west of Scotland were “targeted, necessary and proportionate”, explaining “the data so far suggests that transmission is happening mainly in people’s homes”. Some concerns have been raised about confusing messaging, given that people are still allowed to meet family and friends outdoors or in cafes, but not in their own homes.

She confirmed that there had been 156 new infection cases overnight, with 86 of those in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board area. There was also one death, while weekly figures released at midday by the National Records of Scotland showed that there had been six deaths over the previous week.

The embattled Scottish Labour leader, Richard Leonard, said he welcomed the first minister “coming round to our way of thinking” after Sturgeon announced in yesterday’s programme for government a review of adult social care, which will set out options for a “national care service”, something Leonard’s party has been calling for over many months.

Referencing the number of care homes in the hands of private providers, some registered overseas, Leonard underlined the importance of removing the profit motive from social care. Sturgeon said she agreed with him, but said there was a difference between calling for something in opposition and delivering it in government, which is why time was needed to work out the detail of a new national service.

Asked by Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie about plans for students arriving in Glasgow in the coming weeks, many from oversees, Sturgeon emphasised that testing was not an alternative to quarantine for returning students.

Updated

Labour says it's 'wrong time' for tax increases

In a post-PMQs briefing for journalist, asked about calls for Scottish Labour’s leader to quit, a spokesman for Sir Keir Starmer said:

This is a matter for Scottish Labour, but Keir and Richard have a very good working relationship and they are both focused on next year’s Scottish elections.

Starmer’s spokesman also praised the BBC’s Proms U-turn as “the right decision ... the pomp and pageantry is a staple of the British summer”.

And said it was “the wrong time” for tax rises if the government wants to get the economy back on track. This was in response to reports that Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is planning to raise taxes in his autumn budget to help address the black hole in the nation’s finances created by coronavirus.

PMQs - Snap verdict

Normally, when faced with a new and difficult challenge, people get a little better with practice. But, remarkably, when it comes to facing Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs, Boris Johnson seems to be getting worse. He was never very accomplished in the first place - Starmer won most of their exchanges before the summer recess, often quite easily - but today Johnson was even less impressive than he has been before.

His problems were the same as those on display earlier in the year: a refusal to engage with substance, and an over-reliance on attack lines that just don’t work. Today, with no relevance at all to the question in hand, Johnson launched into a diatribe about Starmer being anti-Brexit and on the side of “an IRA-condoning politician” (ie, Jeremy Corbyn - who would contest the claim he condoned terrorism) before accusing Starmer of being opposed to pupils returning to schools.

At one point Johnson delivered a half-decent swipe against Starmer, describing him as “Captain Hindsight” and saying that Labour never challenged the exam grade algorithm plan it is now criticising so robustly.

But Starmer dealt with this very effectively (telling Johnson he was governing by hindsight - a good example of why being able to think on your feet counts for so much at PMQs), and the rest of Johnson’s lines failed either because they were irrelevant, or because they were never true in the first place. (See 12.30pm and 12.46pm.)

It is normal for politicians to attack their opponents in terms that are not entirely fair. But the good ones know when what they are up to when they are doing this. Today Johnson sounded like someone who might even believe his own propaganda - always a worrying trait.

Although this was in many ways a replay of some of the PMQs we had before the summer, there were at least three new factors in play today that should be concerning for Tory MPs.

First, Johnson doesn’t seem to even be trying to get better. He has had the whole summer to think about how he could improve at PMQs, but today there was no evidence that he has done so. It is one thing to be bad at a particular task; but to try not to get better is less forgivable. This would not matter much if it were just lefty journalists saying that he has been poor at PMQs, but even in the rightwing press it is hard to find anyone saying he has been a success.

Second, Starmer is getting even more confident and authoritative. In the past his PMQs performances have been forensic, but a bit arid, but the more time he spends facing Johnson, the harder he seems to finding it his concealing his contempt for the PM.

His anger comes over as more authentic than Johnson’s, and it was particularly on display when he spoke about his time prosecuting terrorists as DPP. At one point No 10 seemed to think that labelling Starmer as a lawyer would harm is reputation. Today that strategy looks more ineffective than ever.

And, third, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, seems to have finally lost patience with Johnson too. When John Bercow was Speaker he would sometimes interrupt David Cameron when he embarked on lengthy, anti-Labour rants at PMQs. Hoyle has been much less interventionist as a Speaker than Bercow.

But today he shut the PM up when Johnson started to use his dispatch box platform to try to link Starmer to the IRA. He even went further in the next exchange, asking Johnson to address Starmer’s call for that remark to be withdrawn. This suggests that Johnson will have less scope than he might have done for using PMQs as a party political platform.

Boris Johnson at PMQs
Boris Johnson at PMQs Photograph: Parliament/Jessica Taylor

Updated

The Mirror’s Oliver Milne has more evidence of Sir Keir Starmer calling for children to be back in school months ago.

PMQs is over, but the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, allows a point of order.

It’s from Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster. He says in August the Sun quoted a No 10 source blaming Blackford for revealing the location of the PM’s holiday in Scotland. He says this was a political smear. He says he did not reveal where the PM was staying, and was not aware of it. He says this has resulted in Blackford himself, and his family, facing security threats. He says Johnson’s face in the chamber suggests he does not take this seriously, but it is a serious matter.

Johnson says he had a wonderful staycation in Blackford’s constituency. He says he is happy to accept the assurances Blackford gives. But he quotes a tweet from the Daily Record journalist Torcuil Crichton, which he seems to imply undermines what Blackford was saying.

Here is the tweet. It does not at all prove what Johnson implies that it does (that Crichton heard about where Johnson was camping from Blackford).

Hoyle says he is very concerned about the security implications.

Updated

Lee Anderson (Con) asks when the government will fix the asylum system.

Johnson says he has a great deal of sympathy for people who are so desperate. But they are breaking the law, and undermining the system for genuine asylum seekers, he says. That is why the government will take advantage of Brexit and legislate for a new system, he says.

Kate Osborne (Lab) asks the PM to extend the job retention scheme.

Johnson says he has already addressed this. There will always be people arguing for an infinite extension of the scheme. The best solution is to get people back into work. He says the government will continue to support people. But an indefinite furlough is not the answer.

Johnson says HS2 will pay compensation where local roads are closed.

Ruth Cadbury (Lab) asks which of the 12 U-turns he has performed is the PM’s favourite.

Johnson says it is a rare privilege to ask a question in the Commons, and he says he is surprised she asked that. He urges Labour to back people going back to work.

This is from Georgina Bailey from the House magazine, showing that Sir Keir Starmer was on record as saying schools were safe before today, contrary to what Boris Johnson claimed.

Government abandons plan to relax Covid restrictions in Bolton and Trafford in fresh U-turn

There has been another coronavirus government U-turn, my colleague Helen Pidd reports.

This is what Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, was calling for this morning.

This is from my colleague Josh Halliday.

Updated

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson (DUP) urges the PM to look at targeted support for certain employment sectors, and to do more for the self-employed.

Johnson says all sorts of schemes are available to help people. He says he is trying to give people the confidence to go back to work. An ounce of confidence is worth a tonne of taxpayers’ money, he says.

Damian Green (Con) says many people will only want to go into the office on two or three days a week. Will the government encourage rail companies to introduce flexible season tickets?

Johnson says the government is working with rail companies on introducing new products.

Updated

Ian Blackford, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, starts by supporting the condolences to the rail crash victims and the tribute to John Hulme.

Referring to what Johnson said yesterday about the need for the government to sometimes change course in response to changing circumstances, he says the PM admitted he was all at sea. He says the government has performed eight U-turns. Will he do a ninth, and extend the furlough scheme?

Johnson says the furlough scheme has already cost the country £40bn. It keeps people in suspended animation. Instead he wants them to go back to work. He says that is what the Kick Start scheme does.

Blackford says the furlough scheme protects people. France, Germany and Ireland have extended theirs into 2021.

Johnson says the UK furlough scheme is far more generous than anything in some other European countries. The government is helping people get back into work, he says.

Starmer says there have been 12 U-turns. That is serial incompetence. He says Johnson should take full responsibility.

Johnson says he does take responsibility. He says he is trying to get the country back to work. He says the country should come together and says it is safe for kids to go back to school. He says Starmer has not said schools are safe. He should say so.

Starmer says: “Schools are safe.” His own kids have been in school throughout, he says. (Starmer’s wife is a healthcare worker, and so his children qualified for school on the grounds she was an essential worker.)

He says Johnson said he would meet relatives of those who died during coronavirus, but that changed his mind. Will he meet them?

Johnson says the group involved is taking legal action against the government. He says he will meet the relatives when that is over.

He says this was the first time in four months that Starmer said schools were safe. He says Starmer should now say it is safe for workers to return to work. He says the test and trace system is “superlative”. It has conducted more tests than any other European country. Starmer should say than, instead of sneering, he says.

Starmer says Johnson is governing by hindsight. He says Johnson should withdraw what he said about the IRA. Starmer says as DPP he spent five years prosecuting the IRA. Johnson now has to take a decision about the furlough. Will he extend it?

Johnson says Starmer is a doubter. Rather than extend the furlough, he wants to get pupils back into work through the kick-start scheme. He wants to move Britain forward. Labour doesn’t. That is the difference.

Hoyle asks Johnson to address the IRA point.

Johnson says what Starmer says now he should have said when he supported Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.

Updated

Starmer says he has already congratulated students. But Johnson ignored the question, either because he did not know, or because he did know and did nothing. So when did he know?

Johnson says Ofqual said the system was robust. He accuses Starmer of undermining confidence. He says Labour still does not support children going back to school. Will Starmer say schools are safe?

Starmer says Johnson has a tin ear. He says Labour has said it wants pupils back. Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, said so in the Commons yesterday. The government has no grip. That’s right, isn’t it?

Johnson says Starmer wanted to stay in the EU. He backed an IRA-condoning Labour leader.

Hoyle intervenes. He says it would be helpful for Johnson to answer the question.

Johnson says Labour says nothing against the Ofqual system. He calls Starmer “Captain Hindsight”.

Sir Keir Starmer also pays his condolences to the rail crash victims. And he pays tribute to John Hume, the former SDLP leader who died during the recess.

Turing to the A-level grade debacle, he asks when the PM first knew there was a problem with the alogrithm.

Johnson says he and Gavin Williamson understand how difficult it has been for parents and pupils.

He says the government did act. Students know have their grades. Will Starmer congratulate those students?

Updated

Andrew Bowie (Con) asks about the rail crash in Scotland that left three people dead in August.

Boris Johnson expresses his condolences. He says we must learn the lessons from what went wrong.

UPDATE: Originally this post described Andrew Bowie as an SNP MP. In fact, he is a Conservative. Sorry.

Updated

PMQs

PMQs is starting.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, starts by wishing Sir Keir Starmer happy birthday.

ONS update takes overall UK coronavirus deaths to 57,310

This morning the ONS published its latest weekly bulletin on deaths in England and Wales. In the week ending 21 August (or week 34, as the ONS calls it) 138 of the deaths registered involved coronavirus. That was 1.4% of the total and the lowest number of coronavirus deaths for 22 weeks.

The ONS said that, for the second week in a row, overall deaths were again above the five-year average. But that was not driven by coronavirus, it said.

Taking into account the latest figures, PA Media says just over 57,300 deaths involving Covid-19 have now been registered in the UK.

Today’s ONS figures show that 52,217 deaths involving Covid-19 had occurred in England and Wales up to 21 August, and had been registered by 29 August. Figures published last week by the National Records for Scotland showed that 4,222 deaths involving Covid-19 had been registered in Scotland up to 23 August, while 871 deaths had occurred in Northern Ireland up to 21 August (and had been registered up to 26 August), according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.

Together, these figures mean that so far 57,310 deaths have been registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, including suspected cases.

This is much higher than the daily headline figure for the UK published by the government, which is currently 41,504. That’s because the headline daily figure only includes people who died within 28 days of testing positive. Although testing is much more commonplace now, in the early days of the pandemic thousands of people died from coronavirus without being tested.

Updated

Scottish Labour leader under pressure to quit amid growing rebellion

The Scottish Labour leader, Richard Leonard, is under intense pressure to quit after senior MSPs said the party faced “catastrophic defeat” in next year’s Holyrood elections, my colleague Severin Carrell reports. His full story is here.

Ofqual suggests Williamson must accept his share of blame for exam debacle after giving it 'impossible task'

Here are the main points from the written submission to the education committee from Roger Taylor, the Ofqual chair.

  • Taylor says Ofqual now accepts that trying to award grades without allowing students to be assessed was an “impossible task” because it seemed fundamentally unfair. He says:

Any awarding process that does not give the individual the ability to affect their fate by demonstrating their skills and knowledge in a fair test will not command and retain public confidence ...

To try to deliver comparable qualification results in the absence of students having taken any assessments (examinations) proved to be an impossible task.

  • He suggests that Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, has to accept some of the blame for what went wrong. Taylor says:

Understandably, there is now a desire to attribute blame. The decision to use a system of statistical standardised teacher assessments was taken by the secretary of state and issued as a direction to Ofqual. Ofqual could have rejected this, but we decided that this was in the best interests of students, so that they could progress to their next stage of education, training or work.

The implementation of that approach was entirely down to Ofqual. However, given the exceptional nature of this year, we worked in a much more collaborative way than we would in a normal year, sharing detailed information with partners.

We kept the Department for Education fully informed about the work we were doing and the approach we intended to take to qualifications, the risks and impact on results as they emerged. However, we are ultimately responsible for the decisions that fall to us as the regulator.

  • Taylor says Ofqual wanted exams to go ahead in a socially distanced manner, but it was over-ruled by Williamson, who wanted grades to be awarded instead. Taylor says:

In March, Ofqual was consulted by the secretary of state on how to manage school qualifications in the context of a pandemic. Our advice at that time was that the best option in terms of valid qualifications would be to hold exams in a socially distanced manner. We also set out alternative options including the use of standardised teacher assessments and the risks associated with them.

On March 18, the secretary of state for education took the decision to cancel exams this summer. The loss of schooling and the likely parental concerns about sending children back into schools to take exams meant that exams were not considered a viable option.

  • Taylor says that originally there was general agreement that using an algorithm to allocate grades was “a good idea”, even though 0.2% of students would be treated unfairly. It was thought that could be resolved by the appeal system, he says.

The principle of moderating teacher grades was accepted as a sound one, and indeed the relevant regulatory and examination bodies across the four nations of the United Kingdom separately put in place plans to do this ... Using statistics to iron out these differences and ensure consistency looked, in principle, to be a good idea. That is why in our consultations and stakeholder discussions all the teaching unions supported the approach we adopted. Indeed, when we consulted on it, 89% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with our proposed aims for the statistical standardisation approach.

We knew, however, that there would be specific issues associated with this approach. In particular, statistical standardisation of this kind will inevitably result in a very small proportion of quite anomalous results that would need to be corrected by applying human judgment through an appeals process.

For example, we were concerned about bright students in historically low attaining schools. We identified that approximately 0.2% of young peoples’ grades were affected by this but that it was not possible to determine in advance which cases warranted a change to grades. That is why the appeals process we designed and refined was so important.

  • He says Ofqual subsequently realised its approach was “unacceptable” to the public. He says:

Ultimately, however, the approach failed to win public confidence, even in circumstances where it was operating exactly as we had intended it to. While sound in principle, candidates who had reasonable expectations of achieving a grade were not willing to accept that they had been selected on the basis of teacher rankings and statistical predictions to receive a lower grade. To be told that you cannot progress as you wanted because you have been awarded a lower grade in this way was unacceptable.

  • He says an addition problem was that the lockdown went on for longer than originally expected, with the result using autumn exams to allow students to improve their grades was no longer an easy solution. He says:

The original policy was adopted on the basis that the autumn series would give young people who were disappointed with their results, the opportunity to sit an examination. However, the extended lockdown of schools and the failure to ensure that such candidates could still take their places at university meant that this option was, for many, effectively removed. This significantly shifted the public acceptability of awarding standardised grades.

Updated

The education commitee has published the written submission it has received from Roger Taylor, chair of Ofqual, about the exam grade debacle. There is a link to it here.

The submission reflects what Taylor has been telling the committee in the hearing that is still taking place. I will post a summary of the key points shortly.

Sturgeon urges Scots to view new restrictions as 'wake-up call'

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has posted a nine-item thread on Twitter explaining the reasons for the decision to tighten coronavirus restrictions in three local authorities in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area. It starts here.

Here are the tweets where she explains why people in these areas are being told not to visit other people in their homes.

Here is the tweet where Sturgeon explains why Greece has been added to Scotland’s quarantine list.

Sturgeon ends the thread by saying these developments should be seen as a “wake-up call”.

Nicola Sturgeon in the Scottish parliament yesterday.
Nicola Sturgeon in the Scottish parliament yesterday. Photograph: Fraser Bremner/Scottish Daily Mail/PA

Ofqual wanted exams to go ahead, but Williamson chose to cancel them and award grades instead, MPs told

The Commons education committee has started taking evidence from Roger Taylor, chair of Ofqual, and some of his colleagues about the exam grade debacle. You can watch a live feed of the hearing here.

Here are some of the main points so far.

  • Taylor said that Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, took the decision to cancel this year’s exams and award grades instead. Taylor said that Ofqual wanted exams to go ahead. Its second choice option was to delay exams, he said. Awarding a “teacher certificate” was its third choice option, he said. But he said Williamson took the decision to cancel exams without consultation.
  • He said thinking that the system being used to allocate grades would be acceptable to the public was a “fundamental mistake”.
  • He said that Williamson’s office agreed new guidance on appeals that was issued after the publication of A-level results provoked uproar. That advice had to be withdrawn after Williamson subsequently decided he no longer supported it, Taylor said. Taylor said that at that point he felt the situation was “rapidly getting out of control”.
Roger Taylor, chair of Ofqual
Roger Taylor, chair of Ofqual. Photograph: Parliament TV

Updated

50 English council areas with highest number of new coronavirus cases

This morning Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, said there was “no logic” to the changes in lockdown regulations in the north-west. (See 7.57am.) He was referring to the fact that rules have been eased in two local authority areas, Bolton and Trafford, even though the number of cases is rising in those areas and the restrictions remain in force in neighbouring areas, where the number of cases is lower.

Last night PA Media published new coronavirus case figures for every local authority area in England. Here are the 50 authorities with the highest number of new cases in the seven days to 29 August, listed in order.

After the name of each council area, there are four numbers. They are: rate of new cases in the seven days to 29 August, expressed as the number of new cases per 100,000 people; actual number (in brackets) of new cases recorded in the seven days to 29 August; rate of new cases in the seven days to 22 August; number (in brackets) of new cases recorded in the seven days to 22 August.

Pendle 71.7 (66), 68.4 (63)
Bolton 59.1 (170), 18.4 (53)
Corby 56.8 (41), 22.2 (16)
Oldham 56.5 (134), 60.3 (143)
Rossendale 49.0 (35), 12.6 (9)
Blackburn with Darwen 48.8 (73), 57.4 (86)
Bradford 48.5 (262), 43.2 (233)
Rochdale 44.1 (98), 36.9 (82)
South Tyneside 41.1 (62), 11.9 (18)
Manchester 39.3 (217), 45.9 (254)
Tameside 37.1 (84), 30.5 (69)
Salford 36.3 (94), 27.8 (72)
Trafford 35.4 (84), 19.4 (46)
Kettering 35.4 (36), 25.5 (26)
Preston 32.8 (47), 25.8 (37)
Great Yarmouth 32.2 (32), 3.0 (3)
Leeds 31.4 (249), 18.9 (150)
Breckland 30.0 (42), 5.7 (8)
Birmingham 29.4 (336), 24.3 (278)
Kirklees 28.2 (124), 26.4 (116)
Burnley 28.1 (25), 24.7 (22)
Sandwell 27.7 (91), 21.0 (69)
Bury 25.7 (49), 38.2 (73)
Leicester 25.1 (89), 46.3 (164)
Wirral 24.7 (80), 8.6 (28)
Hyndburn 24.7 (20), 21.0 (17)
Watford 23.8 (23), 8.3 (8)
Kensington and Chelsea 23.1 (36), 16.0 (25)
Northampton 22.7 (51), 39.6 (89)
Middlesbrough 22.7 (32), 16.3 (23)
Newcastle-under-Lyme 21.6 (28), 18.5 (24)
Tamworth 20.9 (16), 0.0 (0)
Hackney and City of London 20.3 (59), 22.7 (66)
Peterborough 20.3 (41), 16.8 (34)
Swindon 19.8 (44), 42.8 (95)
Ribble Valley 19.7 (12), 13.1 (8)
Welwyn Hatfield 19.5 (24), 10.6 (13)
Redcar and Cleveland 19.0 (26), 5.8 (8)
Wycombe 18.3 (32), 6.3 (11)
Epping Forest 18.2 (24), 6.8 (9)
Dacorum 18.1 (28), 22.6 (35)
Wandsworth 17.9 (59), 18.5 (61)
Coventry 17.8 (66), 11.0 (41)
Cambridge 17.6 (22), 4.0 (5)
Harrow 17.5 (44), 13.5 (34)
Hammersmith and Fulham 17.3 (32), 16.7 (31)
Windsor and Maidenhead 17.2 (26), 23.1 (35)
Hertsmere 17.2 (18), 9.5 (10)
Calderdale 17.0 (36), 30.7 (65)
Brentwood 16.9 (13), 10.4 (8)

Updated

Johnson's refusal to meet campaign group for relatives of Covid victims 'a new low', says Labour

Labour has described Boris Johnson’s refusal to meet members of a campaign group representing relatives of people who have died from coronavirus as “a new low”. This is from Rachel Reeves, the shadow Cabinet Office minister.

These revelations that bereaved families had to write to Boris Johnson five times asking to meet him – for him to privately go back on his public word and refuse are astounding, and upsetting for so many whose families and lives have been impacted by Covid in this way.

41,504 people have tragically lost their lives to this virus. The very least the prime minister could do is respond truthfully to their families, and have the heart to meet some of them and their representatives.

The prime minister has been going back on his word all summer – but to not even meet with grieving families hits a new low.

Rachel Reeves.
Rachel Reeves. Photograph: Anthony Harvey/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

Agenda for the day

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Kevin Rawlinson.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The ONS is due to release coronavirus death figures for England and Wales.

9.45am: Four officials from Ofqual give evidence to the Commons education committee about the exam grade debacle this summer.

12pm: Boris Johnson faces Sir Keir Starmer at the first PMQs since the summer.

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

12.30pm: Chris Philp, a Home Office minister, is due to answer an urgent question about migrants crossing the Channel.

1pm: Michel Barnier, the EU’s Brexit negotiator, speaks at an online event organised by the Irish thinktank, the Institute of International and European Affairs.

2.30pm: Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, and other Bank officials give evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the economic impact of coronavirus.

Updated

PM criticised for refusing to meet people bereaved by Covid-19

Boris Johnson has come in for heavy criticism for backing out of a meeting with members of a campaign group representing families bereaved by coronavirus. Fiona Kirton, whose father, Bernard, died after being transferred from hospital to a care home without being tested, has told Today:

We’re just bewildered. We’ve written to him five times and he’s refused to meet us in the letter, then he says he doesn’t know about the letters, then he says he will meet us. Now, he says he will not meet us.

There’s no logic.

Kirton said the threat of legal action, which Johnson cited as a reason he was unable to meet the group, came only because he was not responding.

Our main aim was to meet him. And, from our firsthand experience of what has gone wrong in the government response – and this has in lots of cases, we feel, led to unnecessary deaths – we are hoping to actually meet him and put our experience, which is a wealth of experience, before him so that these things can be investigated.

None of us want to take legal action. We’re all grieving for our families. We would prefer to just quietly heal and feel that we can mourn our loved ones without having to go to this amount of effort.

But we’re only doing it because we know that, for example, we’re preparing for a challenging winter report, which the government itself commissioned [and which] predicts a wort-case scenario death toll of 119,000 people this winter.

And we do not want this to happen to other people.

She said her members believe that the 111 system has failed and that a lack of PPE had caused infections in hospitals, adding that the prime minister is unlikely to have gained such a wealth of firsthand experience as the group could offer from his own experience of being treated in hospital.

Updated

As the west of Scotland adjusts to new limited lockdown restrictions preventing indoor household gatherings and lasting for the following two weeks, some critics on social media have been questioning why people cannot meet in their homes but can in pubs and restaurants.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme, the deputy first minister, John Swinney, explained:

In the west of Scotland it isn’t hospitality that is driving the increase in cases from the contact-tracing work that’s been done so far, it’s household contacts, so we’re taking targeted and focused action to try to address the source and the cause of the increases in the hope that we don’t have to do it in other circumstances and of course in hospitality sector there are very strict constraints that have to be followed in all hospitality premises.

Interviewed on the same programme, Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at Edinburgh University, said Scotland had made “huge progress” in reducing infection but that it was a “global phenomenon” to see a rise in cases once lockdown was released.

Asked if there was danger of a “scunner factor”, where people took less heed of restrictions as they were reimposed, she said she believed people would be even more fed up if restrictions were tightened further, for example to close businesses again.

What I hope is that these types of restrictions send a pretty clear message to everybody that there are things that it’s important that all of us do to protect ourselves and protect others, so I hope these local restrictions will actually help with compliance on not having large gatherings indoors so people understand if they do that they avoid restrictions in the future.

Updated

My colleague Josh Halliday has put together a comprehensive rundown of the changes to the local lockdowns in Manchester – and the somewhat unfavourable reaction to them this morning:

The Welsh government is pressing for an urgent meeting with the UK government and the other devolved nations over holiday-makers returning from Zante.

In the last week, the NHS Wales test trace protect service has identified six separate Covid-19 clusters linked to Zante. The cases amount to 30 cases from four flights, two of which landed in England. A rise in the number of cases in Cardiff is also being attributed in part to holiday-makers returning from Zante. The Welsh government said:

There are concerns from our public health teams that the current advice and control measures for returning travellers are insufficient.

Unfortunately, our consultants in communicable disease control have several examples of Covid-19 positive travellers who have not self-isolated on return to Wales. That is a real concern for all of us.

Without action, it is likely that there will be significant health and economic impacts arising from new clusters of infections and renewed disease transmission in Wales.

All passengers on a flight from Zante to Cardiff on Tuesday night were given a letter before leaving the airport requesting that they self-isolate for 14 days. The government also asked for travellers returning to Wales from Zante from other airports outside of Wales to self isolate.

The government has not ruled out introducing a regime of testing at airports. Its health minister Vaughan Gething also said he would not hesitate to bring in local lockdowns if necessary.

Welsh ministers are keen to discuss with their counterparts in the UK whether a common approach to Zante – and possibly the Greek islands as a whole – should be adapted. The Welsh government is keen for a decision to be made on Wednesday. Speaking on BBC Radio Wales on Wednesday, Gething said:

We think the evidence is very clear on Zante with that number of clusters of cases from a relatively small island but it’s a tourist destination and we don’t believe it’s uniquely Welsh tourists that are acquiring Covid on the island of Zante.

I’m sure UK ministers will make their own announcements for England. I’m very confident we’ve done the right thing to keep Wales safe.

Vaughan Gething.
Vaughan Gething. Photograph: Isabel Infantes/PA

Updated

The Guardian has been told that the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, was offered evidence of serious flaws in the grading of this year’s exams two weeks before A-level results were published in England, Richard Adams and Heather Stewart write.

But Williamson and the Department for Education were reassured by the exam regulator Ofqual that the flaws could be managed by allowing schools to appeal in cases of unusual results.

It is the most compelling evidence to date that Williamson, the DfE and Ofqual had detailed warning of the problems that would later turn into a fiasco, disrupting the lives and education of hundreds of thousands of young people.

The details are likely to raise difficult new questions for Ofqual, whose chiefs go in front of MPs on Wednesday – but also for Williamson, who initially suggested he had only been aware of “real concerns” about A-level grades after the initial results were published on 13 August.

Updated

Earlier, Greater Manchester’s mayor called the lifting of restrictions in some areas and not others “completely illogical”. Here, from my colleague Josh Halliday, is some illuminating context:

The former Tory leadership candidate Jeremy Hunt has said he “dodged a bullet” in not becoming prime minister shortly before the pandemic. Hunt, who also served as health secretary and now chairs the health select committee, told Sky News:

Well, I certainly dodged a bullet if you look at the year poor Boris has had ... it’s been a very tough year for anyone who was prime minister.

He added that he wanted the government to introduce weekly testing for secondary school teachers.

Boris Johnson has declined to meet members of a campaign group representing families bereaved by coronavirus, despite appearing to promise to do so on live TV last week, Heather Stewart and Jessica Elgot write.

Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, which says it represents 1,600 bereaved families, is campaigning for a rapid public inquiry into the government’s response to the pandemic and is taking legal action to force one, sending pre-action letters to the government.

Challenged live on Sky News last week about repeated requests from the group for a face-to-face meeting, the prime minister said he was “not aware” of their letters, but “of course” he would meet them.

Speaking to the same programme about the possibility of further restrictions being placed on people travelling to the UK from Greece, the latter’s tourism minister Harry Theoharis has said Greece has “a much lower number of infections compared to most other countries in Europe”.

We’re actually in the right direction. We’re going down in terms of the average numbers. We’re taking specific targeted measures where we see specific concentrations of cases. Measures that have been successful and have been working in the past few days.

So I think we’re doing everything in our power to ensure that every person that comes from the UK is kept safe in Greece.

Of course, everybody should also have some restraint, understand that this is a different summer. You mentioned it before, it’s not exactly the same like the past few years.

We should all keep control of the situation, use our masks where it’s required, follow the rules etc in order to ensure that everybody is kept safe.

'No logic' for local lockdowns – Burnham

Asked what people in the two boroughs should do if invited to someone else’s home, Burnham said:

People can, so people will have to use their judgment. But ... we’re in an unsustainable position. How can we explain this to the public now? The lockdown, as people call it, was always hard to explain and now there is just no logic for it.

And that’s why we’re saying to the government: talk to us today about an exit strategy from this because, actually, blanket restrictions I don’t believe are as effective as the targeted interventions ...

I think they were effective in the early stages, when they were first introduced. But their effectiveness has diminished over the weeks and I think we now need to move to these high-impact, targeted interventions at a community level.

And that means resourcing our 10 councils to carry out that kind of work. The government promised that it would release resources from the national test and trace system to local authorities and that hasn’t happened yet. And it needs to happen – particularly with schools coming back.

Updated

Local lockdown confusion 'completely unsustainable', says Andy Burnham

Here’s a little more on those comments from Andy Burnham, who’s called the easing of restrictions in Bolton and Trafford “completely illogical”. He told Today that people in Bolton and Trafford should “continue to follow the guidance” not to have gatherings in their homes.

We find ourselves at a completely unsustainable position this morning – that’s the politest way I can put it.

Overnight, we’ve had restrictions released in two boroughs where we’ve got a rising number of cases – in one case, in the red zone. And neighbouring boroughs are still under restrictions but with much lower numbers of cases.

These restrictions were always hard to explain to the public but they are completely illogical now.

Andy Burnham.
Andy Burnham. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Updated

Good morning

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s UK live blog. I’ll be taking you through the next few hours, before handing over to the usual custodian, Andrew Sparrow.

‘Decide restrictions exit strategy’, ministers told

The current system of restriction is unsustainable, the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has said, as plans to lift conditions on more than half a million people were thrown into confusion.

The Trafford and Bolton boroughs were released from restrictions despite the increasing rates and last-minute local requests for a deferment that went unanswered, Burnham has said, while neighbouring boroughs with lower numbers of infection were still living under lockdowns.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he has called for ministers to agree an exit strategy today – including door-to-door testing and tracing interventions, which he said has proven most effective when used in Manchester.

Travellers from Greece face quarantine

Westminster is facing pressure to reconsider quarantine rules for people arriving in England from Greece after Scotland and Wales introduced similar measures over concerns about rising numbers of cases.

The Greek tourism minister Harry Theoharis stressed that his nation had recorded fewer cases than many others in Europe in an interview with Today.

Prime minister to face MPs

Boris Johnson faces his first prime minister’s questions since the government was forced into a string of embarrassing U-turns over post-16 exams that have soured Conservative backbench opinion towards his government’s handling of the pandemic.

Updated

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