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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Andrew Sparrow (now); Frances Perraudin (earlier)

UK coronavirus: Johnson hails 'breakthrough' of cheap steroid that helps prevent Covid-19 deaths — as it happened

Boris Johnson's press conference - Summary

Here are the main points from Boris Johnson’s press conference.

  • Johnson welcomed what he described as “the biggest breakthrough yet” in the search to find an effective treatment for coronavirus. Referring to the results of a trial of dexamethasone, Johnson said he was very proud of the British team involved who had “led the first robust clinical trial anywhere in the world to find a coronavirus treatment proven to reduce the risk of death”. Prof Peter Horby from Oxford University, who led the trial, said the results of the trial were remarkable. He explained:

In ventilated patients with Covid-19, the drug dexamethosone - so 10 days of treatment with that, which is a tablet or injection - reduces the risk of death by about 35%. In patients on the ward who require oxygen and have covid, it reduces the risk of death by about 20% - that covers about 75% of patients in hospital who will see a mortality benefit from using this drug.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, also welcomed the findings although he said that the drug, which only helps patients who are already severely ill, did not mean that other measures to reduce the spread of the disease were not needed.

  • Johnson claimed he had only today become aware of Marcus Rashford’s campaign for school meal vouchers to be supplied in England over the summer. Asked about his U-turn on this, Johnson said:

I talked to Marcus Rashford today to congratulate him on his campaigning, which to be honest I only became aware of very recently – today. I thank him for what he has done. I think he is right to draw attention to this issue, and basically we’ve got large numbers of kids who haven’t been able to get back into school.

This answer surprised journalists because Rashford’s open letter to MPs on school vouchers was running as a big story yesterday and Johnson’s spokesman told the lobby at lunchtime on Monday that the PM would be responding to it. Perhaps Johnson was not telling the truth at the press conference; that has certainly happened before. But it is also possible that he was genuinely unaware of this media story, despite what his spokesman said yesterday. Prime ministers are often less aware of the news than journalists assume. In an interview at the Tory conference in 2019 Johnson said he had never heard of BBC presenter Naga Munchetty, even though the row about her comment about Donald Trump had been in the headlines for days.

  • Johnson said that as the number of coronavirus infections fell, there would be a “strong case” for relaxing the 2-metre rule. He very much hoped to do that, he said. In response to a question from a member of the public asking for it to be replaced with a 1-metre rule, he said:

We’re getting there ... I know people are very, very patient about this, we’re making as much progress on that as we can. Watch this space, because we absolutely hear you.

  • Johnson claimed the UK had turned the tide in the fight against coronavirus. Asked about his comment 12 weeks ago that after 12 weeks the UK would have turned the tide, Johnson said:

We are now starting to see – with drugs like dexamethasone and the idea that perhaps you could combine that with other things – we are seeing the first chink of light, which I was perhaps a bit dubious about.

We are seeing the first chink of light and the hope that there will be preparations, treatments – there already are – that could make a big difference to mortality rates, and we are making big investments in vaccines.

None of that negates the importance of us continuing to follow the rules, control the virus and save lives – we have turned the tide on it, we haven’t yet, finally, defeated it.

He also repeated an image he used as the pandemic was just taking hold, describing the need to flatten the curve of the disease as squashing the sombrero. My colleague Heather Stewart questions whether his tone was appropriate.

  • Johnson said the case for merging DfID with the FCO was so strong he was surprised it had not happened already. He said:

This is a fantastic opportunity for this country to make the most of our enormous influence abroad and maximise the UK’s projection by merging DfId and the FCO.

Frankly, I think it is extraordinary we haven’t done it earlier – we have 28 out of 29 OECD countries doing it this way.

It is far more coherent, it means that the sums that we spend on aid are used, not just to tackle poverty, deprivation around the world, but they are far better in line with UK government policy and the priorities of the British people.

I’m absolutely certain it is the right thing for our country right now.

Chris Deerin, a former comment editor at the Daily Telegraph who now runs the Reform Scotland thinktank, says this move may be only the start of Johnson’s reform of Whitehall institutions.

  • Johnson urged parents in England to send their children back to school if they were able to do so. It was safe, he said.
  • He said his baby, Wilfred, and his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, were doing well. Johnson has said almost nothing in public about his baby. Other prime ministers have been happy to talk about their children but Johnson, whose private life is more complicated than most of his predecessors’, says as little as possible about them. Asked how the baby was doing, he said:

I never normally comment about these sorts of things but it’s all fine so far ... All doing well.

Updated

According to the Health Service Journal, the 2 million-plus people who are shielding, and who have been told not to leave home because they are deemed extremely clinically vulnerable, will find the rules for them relaxed from the end of July.

Updated

The number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 among prisons in England and Wales continues to rise, a Ministry of Justice figures shows.

As at 5pm on Monday, 502 prisoners had tested positive for the coronavirus across 80 prisons, a rise of 0.4% in 24 hours, while there were 971 infected staff across 105 prisons, a rise of 0.6% in the same period.

There are around 79,700 prisoners across 117 prisons in England and Wales, and around 33,000 staff working in public sector prisons.

At least 23 prisoners and nine staff are known to have died, as well as one prison escort driver and one NHS trust employee working in a secure training centre.

Rory Stewart, the former Conservative international development secretary (who subsequently left the party after opposing Boris Johnson’s Brexit policy), has joined those criticising the plan to merge DfID with the FCO.

Q: [From the South Wales Argus] Is Wales being sidelined? Mark Drakeford said yesterday that he had gone almost three weeks without speaking to you.

Johnson says the UK government consults with the Welsh government regularly. He looks forward to speaking to Drakeford.

And, since the question came from the South Wales Argus, he says people from Cardiff contributed greatly to the dexamethasone trial.

(South Wales Argus is based in Newport, not Cardiff. When I worked in Cardiff many years ago, I don’t think the Argus had any readers in the Welsh capital.)

That’s it. The press conference is over.

Q: Will you be talking to President Macron about travel corridors?

Johnson says he will be talking to Macron about all sorts of things, including this, when they meet later this week. And he says they will be talking to Spain too about this.

Updated

Q: You said 12 weeks ago we would be almost through this by now. Yet it does not feel like that.

Johnson says he said they would turn the tide in 12 weeks. He thinks that has happened. We are coming through it, he says.

He says they have flattened the sombrero, or whatever he said they would do.

He says they are seeing “the first chink of light” in the fight against the disease with drugs like dexamethasone.

We have turned the tide on it. We have not yet finally defeated it.

But people are resolved to defeat it, he says.

Q: How is baby Wilfred getting on? Has he seen his grandparents?

Johnson says he never normally comments on things like this, but it is all fine so far.

Q: How quickly will NHS patients be able to get dexamethasone? And, given that you have banned its export, how does that square with global Britain?

Johnson says he is not aware of an export ban. He says this drug is produced around the world.

Vallance says this drug is inexpensive and very widely available.

And he says this study will help people across the world.

The chief medical officer will issue guidance soon saying this should be used for clinical practice, he says.

Horby says doctors should be able to use the drug this evening. It is in the cupboard, and they know how it works.

Q: Are you planning to switch aid money from poorer countries to richer countries?

Johnson says that is not what’s happening. He says he wants to ensure the UK gets more “bang for its buck” with aid spending.

He says other countries are doing the same thing.

Q: Why did it take a 22-year-old footballer to shame you into doing the right thing?

Johnson says this is the right thing to do. He congratulates Marcus Rashford. In normal circumstances you only give out these vouchers in term time. But now there is a need to help people, he says.

Q: Can you assure David Cameron that merging DfID and the FCO is the right thing to do?

Johnson says he is certain this is the right thing to do. He says he is surprised it did not happen earlier.

He says he is trying to put the idealism of DfID at the heart of foreign policy. It will create a super-department, he says.

Q: It took a campaign from a footballer for you to do something about free school meals. Have you lost touch with the need to level up?

Johnson says he spoke to Marcus Rashford today and thanked him for his campaign. He says he only became aware of it recently.

He says he hopes the school vouchers announcement will make a big difference.

Q: Does the dexamethasone breakthrough change what might happen if there were a second wave?

Vallance says this will not stop people getting the illness.

Horby says, if there were a second wave, there would still be a need for social distancing measures.

Updated

Johnson says people should be able to attend funerals if they follow social distancing rules. The government will say more on this as it approaches 4 July, he says.

Trevor from Northamptonshire asks when the government will move from two metres to one.

Johnson says two metres are more effective.

But it is also his view, he says, that as the infection numbers fall, then the statistical likelihood of being next to someone with coronavirus falls.

This is under constant review, he says.

As the incidence of coronavirus goes down, there will be a “strong case” for changing the rule.

Vallance says what the PM said was “absolutely right”. He goes on:

I don’t think two metres is some absolute cut-off that never changes.

According to the ONS, only six out of 10,000 people have the disease. That means it becomes safer to change, he suggests.

Updated

At the press conference Horby is speaking now.

He says dexamethasone is not a drug that you would use on patients who do not have breathing difficulties. But, in patients with breathing difficulties, it has significant benefits, he says.

He says if you were to use it on eight patients in this category, you would save one life. And the drugs for all eight would only cost £40, he says.

He says this is a common drug, which has been around for many years and which is very cheap.

Here is my colleague Sarah Boseley’s report about this trial, involving a drug called dexamethasone.

And this is how it starts.

A cheap steroid has become the first life-saving treatment in the Covid-19 pandemic, described by scientists as a major breakthrough and raising hopes for the survival of thousands of the most seriously ill.

Dexamethasone is cheap, available from any pharmacy, and easily obtainable anywhere in the world. Investigators said the drug was responsible for the survival of one in eight of the sickest patients – those who were on ventilators – in the Recovery trial, the biggest randomised, controlled trial of coronavirus treatments in the world.

“It is the only drug so far shown to reduce mortality and it reduces it significantly,” said Peter Horby, a professor of emerging infectious diseases in the Nuffield department of medicine, at the University of Oxford, and one of the chief investigators of the trial. “It is a major breakthrough, I think.”

Johnson says today global efforts to find a long-term solution continue.

He claims the biggest breakthrough yet has been made by a team of British scientists.

Backed by UK government funding, they have led the first robust clinical trial in the world proven to have reduced the risk of death, he says.

See 1.37pm for more.

Updated

Johnson says he is “all too aware” that the 2-metre rule has implications for schools and other sectors.

He will do everything in his power to get life back to normal.

But he will proceed carefully, and will only act in a way that minimises the risk to life, he says.

Updated

Johnson says the government is following its plan.

At each stage it has only eased lockdown measures when the evidence suggested that was safe, he says.

He says it has been good to see non-essential shops opening, and more pupils returning to school in England.

He urges all parents whose children are eligible to return that it is safe for them to do so.

Updated

Johnson starts with the slides.

Here are the death figures.

Death figures
Death figures Photograph: No 10

Boris Johnson's press conference

Boris Johnson is holding the UK government’s daily press conference. He is appearing with Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, and Prof Peter Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases and global health at Oxford University.

Johnson says he will let Vallance and Horby do most of the talking because they have some news.

Public Health England has now published a report called Understanding the impact of Covid-19 on BAME groups (pdf). It covers in part how structural racism helps to explain why black, Asian and minority ethnic people in England are at greater risk of dying from coronavirus than white people.

Much of this material was expected to appear in the first Public Health England report on disparities in the risk posed by coronavirus to different groups. But it was held back, leading to complaints that the report did not fully address the extent of the problem.

Here is an extract from today’s report.

It is clear from discussions with stakeholders that Covid-19 in their view did not create health inequalities, but rather the pandemic exposed and exacerbated longstanding inequalities affecting BAME groups in the UK. A wide variety of explanations for these have been examined, ranging from upstream social and economic factors to downstream biological factors (this review did not look at genetic factors). BAME groups tend to have poorer socioeconomic circumstances which lead to poorer health outcomes. Data from the ONS and the PHE analysis confirmed the strong association between economic disadvantage and Covid-19 diagnoses, incidence and severe disease. Economic disadvantage is also strongly associated with the prevalence of smoking, obesity, diabetes, hypertension and their cardio-metabolic complications, which all increase the risk of disease severity.

Stakeholders felt that the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on BAME groups presented an opportunity to create fast but sustainable change and mitigate further impact. Change needs to be large scale and transformative. Action is needed to change the structural and societal environments such as the homes, neighbourhoods, work places - not solely focusing on individuals. There is a legal duty and moral responsibility to reduce inequalities.

Updated

Leaders from across the political spectrum in Scotland called on the UK government to protect around 900 Dfid jobs based in East Kilbride after Boris Johnson confirmed the department would be merged with the Foreign Office.

Its large base in Scotland is frequently cited by pro-UK parties and the Scotland Office as evidence of the UK government’s investment in the union; alongside HM Revenue and Customs and various armed services, DfID has the largest presence of any Whitehall department in Scotland.

Ian Murray, the shadow Scottish secretary and MP for Edinburgh South, said losing Dfid “would be a deeply retrograde step at any time, let alone at a time when global cooperation is needed more than ever”. He went on:

As part of the UK, Scotland plays a vital role in the fight against global poverty through the work led by Dfid staff in East Kilbride. If this ill-judged merger goes ahead, it is vital the jobs in East Kilbride are fully protected.

The Scottish government’s prospectus for independence in the 2014 referendum proposed one ministry for foreign affairs and global development. However, Jenny Gilruth, the Scottish minister for Europe and international development, said merging Dfid with the Foreign Office was a “deplorable decision”. She said:

International development is about reducing global poverty and we are fully committed to playing our part in tackling shared global challenges including poverty, injustice and inequality. We urge the UK government to reverse its decision, to protect the jobs at Dfid in Scotland and to ensure that UK aid is free from political influence.

Johnson told MPs the Dfid jobs in East Kilbride would stay. (See 2.08pm.)

Updated

What Boris Johnson's vivid language says about his attitude to foreign policy

The full text of Boris Johnson’s opening statement to MPs about the merger of Dfid and the FCO is here. But, as is often the case with exchanges in the Commons, some of his impromptu language was more revealing. Two replies to MPs were particularly striking because they suggested that his instinctive view of British foreign policy is inherently reactionary.

Johnson calls DfID ‘a giant cashpoint in the sky’

Replying to a question from the Tory MP Steve Double, Johnson said:

What is actually happening, of course, is that Dfid and the FCO are now joining together to become a new Whitehall super-department for international affairs, which will be of huge benefit to our ability to project Britain’s sense of mission about overseas aid.

For too long, frankly, UK overseas aid has been treated as some giant cashpoint in the sky that arrives without any reference to UK interests or to the values that the UK wishes to express or the priorities diplomatic, political or commercial of the government of the UK.

This phrase was condemned by the former Conservative Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt, who posed these on Twitter.

Johnson suggests diplomacy is about dealing with leaders who cut their opponents’ heads off

In response to a question from the SNP’s Kirsty Blackman, Johnson said:

It is no use a British diplomat one day going in to see the leader of a country and urging him not to cut the head off his opponent, and to do something for democracy in his county, if the next day another emanation of the British government is going to arrive with a cheque for £250m. We have to speak with one voice. We must project the UK overseas in a consistent and powerful way.

After saying “cut the head off his opponent”, Johnson paused, as if he had realised that he had said something wrong. He probably had, although no one seemed to object at the time. This sounded like a line from one of his reactionary Daily Telegraph columns, redolent of an imperialist world view in which foreigners are assumed to be less civilised.

Updated

Blair says he is 'utterly dismayed' by Johnson's decision to abolish DfID

Tony Blair has said that he is “utterly dismayed” by the decision to merge DfID with the FCO.

Boris Johnson has now managed to unite three former prime ministers - two Labour ones and one Conservative - in opposition to his plan to get rid of DfID as a stand-alone department.

We are yet to hear from Sir John Major and Theresa May on the subject. But Major never set up an independent department for international aid himself, and so is unlikely to feel any attachment to DfID, and May showed little interest in this area during her short, Brexit-dominated premiership.

Updated

Free school meal scheme could be extended for summer holidays in Northern Ireland, says Foster

Arlene Foster, the first minister of Northern Ireland, has said she will be proposing the extension of free school meal support to the region’s pupils over the summer holidays. She told told the Northern Ireland assembly she would make the proposal to colleagues in the power-sharing coalition. The measure would be dependent on the necessary funds being found, she said.

For the record, this list shows how today’s UK coronavirus daily death figure, 233 (see 3.36pm), compares to the equivalent figures for the past two weeks.

Tuesday 2 June - 324

Wednesday 3 June - 359

Thursday 4 June - 176

Friday 5 June - 357

Saturday 6 June - 204

Sunday 7 June - 77

Monday 8 June - 55

Tuesday 9 June - 286

Wednesday 10 June - 245

Thursday 11 June - 151

Friday 12 June - 202

Saturday 13 June - 181

Sunday 14 June - 36

Monday 15 June - 38

UK records further 233 coronavirus deaths, taking total to 41,969

The Department of Health and Social Care has released the latest coronavirus death figures for the UK. There have been a further 233 deaths, taking the total to 41,969.

These headline figures only include deaths where someone tested positive for coronavirus. But thousands of people have died without having a test, which is why the ONS totals are higher. (See 10.19am.)

NHS England today recorded a further 79 hospital deaths in England. The full details are here.

In Wales a further eight deaths have been recorded.

Scotland has recorded five more deaths today.

And there has been one further death in Northern Ireland.

Updated

Gordon Brown accuses Johnson of 'abolishing one of UK's great international assets'

Another former prime minister, Gordon Brown, has also criticised the decision to merge DfID and the FCO. He says Boris Johnson is “abolishing one of the UK’s great international assets”.

Updated

In the Commons Labour’s Emma Hardy asks Johnson if he agrees with David Cameron. (See 2.46pm.)

Johnson says he does not. He says at the moment there is “an incoherence” in foreign policy. He says the merger will make aid specialists more influential.

David Cameron says merging DfID and FCO 'a mistake' that will lead to UK being less respected abroad

And David Cameron, who appointed Andrew Mitchell as international development secretary and who was PM when the UK finally hit the 0.7% aid spending target (which was never popular with Tory activists), has also criticised the move. He says it is a “mistake” that will lead to the UK being less respected abroad.

For Cameron, speaking out in these terms is quite a big deal. Since leaving No 10 in 2016 he has largely avoided criticising his successors, even though Theresa May and Boris Johnson have both pursued policies that he would not support.

DfID/FCO merger 'a quite extraordinary mistake', says former Tory international development secretary Andrew Mitchell

Earlier Sir Keir Starmer said Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative international development secretary when David Cameron was PM, had described the DfID/FCO merger as a mistake. The Birmingham Mail has the full quote from Mitchell. Mitchell said:

Abolishing Dfid would be a quite extraordinary mistake. First, it would destroy one of the most effective and respected engines of international development anywhere in the world.

Second, many of the senior figures who are key to Britain’s role as a development superpower will likely leave and go elsewhere in the international system – at a stroke destroying a key aspect of global Britain.

Third, it is completely unnecessary as the prime minister exercises full control over DfID’s strategy and priorities through the national security council.

Updated

These are from Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, on the DfID/FCO merger.

The Lib Dem MP Wera Hobhouse says the PM seems to be saying the UK will only help the poorest in the world if they are buying British goods.

Johnson says Hobhouse should be proud of what the UK is doing around the world.

Updated

Labour’s Kevin Brennan asks if Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, and Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the international development secretary, will both have to apply for the post to run the new department.

Johnson sidesteps the questions.

The SNP’s Kirsty Blackman asks if the purpose of the new department will be to help the poorest in the world, or if it will be to enhance British power abroad?

Both, says Johnson.

He says there is no point in having a British ambassador asking a foreign leader not to cut the head off one of his rivals if another British official is going to turn up a day later with a cheque for £250m.

UPDATE: I’ve corrected this post because Johnson said “cut the head off”, not “chop the head off”, and he said £250m, not £250,000. I’ve posted the full, direct quote at 4.25pm.

Updated

Johnson says British ambassadors will be listened to more seriously if they represent a department in charge of all UK government overseas spending.

Johnson says British producers should get a fair crack of the whip when it comes to benefiting from UK government spending.

Tobias Ellwood, the Tory MP who chairs of the Commons defence committee and a former FCO minister, questions the timing of this move. He says it should have been implemented as part of the ongoing review covering defence and foreign policy.

Updated

Labour’s Sarah Champion says she is “incredulous” at this move. She says at a stroke the PM is diminishing the UK’s soft power.

Johnson claims Champion is being “far too negative”. This was a chance to get value from aid spending. And it would also put aid spending at the heart of foreign policy, he says.

Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, says he has been calling for this for some time. He says Norway and Denmark organise aid spending in this way, and both run successful aid programmes.

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says the PM is ripping apart the structures of UK aid. He claims the government is going to wind down aid for the poorest.

If these are the values of global Britain, then they do not represent the values of the vast majority of the people of Scotland.

He says aid experts have advised against this, claiming this move will amount to the UK turning its back on poorest of the world.

Did the PM read the report from the international development committee on this?

Has he consulted aid agencies?

Will DfID jobs in East Kilbride remain?

In his reply, Johnson says most OECD countries merge aid and foreign policy in this way.

He says the SNP want to break up the UK. But they are also lobbying to keep jobs in East Kilbride.

He says he will keep those jobs in East Kilbride. The SNP would throw them away.

Updated

Here is the story from my colleagues Patrick Wintour and Heather Stewart on the DfID/FCO merger.

Johnson is responding to Starmer.

He says anyone who knows anything about foreign policy knows that Britain’s clout is less than the sum of its parts.

He says “of course” the DfID budget will be protected.

Updated

Starmer dismisses DfID/FCO merger as 'tactics of pure distraction'

Sir Keir Starmer starts by saying Jo Cox (an international aid worker before she became an MP) valued DfID.

And he says Cox would have seen this statement for what it is - “the tactics of pure distraction”.

The UK has one of the highest death tolls in the world. Unemployment is rising. And the government has just performed a U-turn on school vouchers.

He says this statement is intended to distract attention from all that. “And it will not work.”

Starmer says he wants to see the UK as a global force for good.

That won’t be achieved by abolishing on of the best performing departments, he says.

He says he is proud Labour created Dfid. And until now it has had cross-party support. He quotes Andrew Mitchell, a Tory former international development secretary, saying it is a key soft power asset for the UK.

He say Labour is not convinced by the assurance that the UK will continue to meet the 0.7% aid target.

He asks for an assurance that the DfID budget will be protected in the new department.

Updated

Johnson says people might ask if this is the right time to reorganise Whitehall.

But he says the coronavirus has already shown the need for a whole-government approach in other areas.

Johnson confirms merger of DfID and FCO to create new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Johnson starts by saying he wants to bring the UK’s influence to bear on the world’s problems.

The UK has the third biggest aid budget and diplomatic network in the world, he says.

Taxpayers would expect that to work for the country, he says.

He says distinctions between diplomacy and aid are artificial.

He says fighting coronavirus worldwide is in the national interest. He says it makes no sense to try to define that as either aid or diplomacy. It is both, he says.

Yet, under the current system, aid spending is separated, he says. He says Dfid outspends the FCO by a factor of four.

He says no single department takes an overview of this spending, and how it fits in with diplomatic goals.

Faced with this crisis, we have a responsibility to ask whether the current arrangements still maximise British influence.

He says DfID was set up 23 years ago. That was the right decision at the time. It led to the government eventually meeting its target of getting aid spending up to 0.7% of national spending.

  • Johnson confirms he is merging DfID and the FCO to create a new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Updated

Boris Johnson is addressing MPs now. He starts with a tribute to Jo Cox, the Labour MP murdered by a far-right terrorist four years ago today.

This is from the Oxfam GB chief executive, Danny Sriskandarajah, on the DfID/FCO merger. He said:

It is scarcely believable that at a time when decades of progress are under threat from Covid, the prime minister has decided to scrap Dfid, a world leader in the fight against poverty. With half a billion people at risk of being pushed into poverty the UK should be stepping up to protect lives and but is instead choosing to step back.

This decision puts politics above the needs of the poorest people and will mean more people around the world will die unnecessarily from hunger and disease. The Foreign Office may be excellent at diplomacy but it has a patchy record of aid delivery and is not as transparent as Dfid. To be a truly ‘Global Britain’ we need to do more to live up to our values, not turn our backs on them.

Updated

Boris Johnson's Commons statement on merging DfID with FCO

Boris Johnson is going to start his Commons statement in the next few minutes.

Boris Johnson will shortly be making his Commons statement about the merger of the Foreign Office with the Department for International Development.

Justine Greening, the Conservative former international development secretary, is not happy about the move, the Mirror’s Pippa Crerar reports.

And Douglas Alexander, a former Labour international development secretary, has described this as “an act of national self harm”.

These are from the BBC’s medical correspondent Fergus Walsh.

Boris Johnson will be taking the government’s press conference at 5pm this afternoon, No 10 has announced.

My colleague Marina Hyde has written a column in praise of Marcus Rashford. Here’s an excerpt.

So we are left with a 22-year-old footballer having to point out the realities to men whose job it is supposed to be to know. The one thing people love to say about footballers is how many nurses’ salaries their contracts could pay for. Oddly, nurses and footballers seem to be the only two currencies traded on this exchange – which must be to the great satisfaction of politicians. And yet, purely in terms of moral worth and strategic competence, how many Gavin Williamsons would you have to amass before you were even close to the value of one Marcus Rashford? How many Matt Hancocks? How many Boris Johnsons? Perhaps it’s time to move the goalposts and ask those questions instead.

And here is the full article.

Here is the story from my colleagues Heather Stewart and Helen Pidd on the No 10 school meal vouchers U-turn.

Today’s school meal voucher decision amounts to the third clear policy U-turn from Downing Street during the coronavirus crisis.

Last month Boris Johnson announced that migrant NHS and care staff would no longer have to pay the NHS surcharge (an extra fee added to the cost of their visa to cover the fact they might need NHS services - even though they also pay tax to fund the NHS). This was a policy that Johnson had defended in principle at PMQs.

Less significantly, the Home Office had early announced that it was going to extend a policy allowing the relatives of NHS workers who died from coronavirus indefinite leave to remain in the UK if they were at risk of deportation so that the relatives of other workers, such as cleaners and care staff, were also included. This decision also came in response to public pressure for a shift.

(Arguably the government has also performed various U-turns in its direct handling of coronavirus, for example in relation to community testing, or the lockdown policy itself, but in these areas policy evolved in relation to changing circumstances, and so they have not always been depicted as clear-cut U-turns.)

Marcus Rashford has just posted this on Twitter about his school meal voucher campaign victory.

Free school meal scheme to be extended in Scotland to cover summer holidays, Sturgeon says

Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed free school meals will be extended in Scotland to all eligible children over the summer holidays, matching the decision announced for England by No 10.

The first minister announced at her daily coronavirus press conference that Scotland’s 32 local councils will be given a further £12.6m to extend free school meal provision until schools reopen from 11 August.

About 175,000 children are entitled to free meals, and the Scottish government has been funding councils to provide free lunches during the lockdown at hubs, or through food or supermarket vouchers or cash payments. She said:

This provision will be extended right through the summer holiday period. We know families are under considerable financial pressure and free school meals are a vital help to many.

Prof Morag Treanor, a child poverty specialist at Heriot Watt university, said last week in a blog the support offered varied considerably between councils, because there was no standardisation of provision.

Some provided £2.50 in cash per day in four-weekly payments; some provided prepaid cards for the Farmfoods chain at either £2 or £4 per day; some were given PayPoint vouchers which could be used in different shops; others provided food boxes or packed lunches.

Treanor said this approach was flawed, and should be standardised. She said:

The initial emergency response to Covid-19 was understandably and necessarily swift and did not draw on the evidence on the best way to support families living in poverty. However, time is moving on and now is the time to take stock, to evaluate practice, to take on board expert opinion, including those with lived experience, and to consider a change of approach.

Updated

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has welcomed the Downing Street U-turn.

No 10 to extend school meal voucher system over summer holidays for England in U-turn prompted by Rashford campaign

The Downing Street lobby briefing has just finished. And No 10 has announced a U-turn on free school meal vouchers for pupils in England during the summer holidays.

  • Pupils in England from poor homes will get meal vouchers over the summer holidays after Downing Street announced a significant U-turn. Yesterday No 10 was resisting the campaign championed by the England footballer Marcus Rashford and supported by Labour, and some Tory MPs, for the school meal voucher scheme to be extended to cover the summer holidays. But now, only hours ahead of a Commons vote on the plan, No 10 has backed down. The prime minister’s spokesman told journalists:

Owing to the coronavirus pandemic, the prime minister fully understands that children and parents face an entirely unprecedented situation over the summer. To reflect this, we will be providing a Covid summer food fund. This will provide food vouchers covering the six-week holiday period. Full details will be set out shortly, but this is a specific measure to reflect the unique circumstances of the pandemic. The scheme will not continue beyond the summer and those eligible will be those who already qualify for free school meals. As the PM has said it is our intention, to get all pupils back into school in September.

Payment will be through vouchers and most likely it will be a one-off six week voucher given to eligible families at the end of term to use in supermarkets.

The scheme will cost the government around £120m and this will be would be in addition to the £63m already announced to help councils provide support for low-income families over the summer. The vouchers will be worth £15 a week, the spokesman said. Around 1.3 million children, or 15% of state pupils, will benefit.

The spokesman refused to confirm that the campaign led by Rashford changed the PM’s mind but, when asked if he would be willing to pay tribute to Rashford, the spokesman said that at the briefing yesterday he said the PM welcomed Rashford’s contribution to the debate.

The Welsh government has already said its own scheme will run over the summer holidays. (See 12.34pm.)

Updated

This is from Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, on free school meals over the summer. He is pointing out that Wales is implementing the policy proposed by Marcus Rashford.

Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative chair of the Commons health committee, has just told Sky News that he thinks the government will have to do something to address the needs of families who cannot afford to feed their children properly during the summer holidays.

Catching up with hospital operations postponed during Covid crisis could take 'few years', MPs told

In evidence to the Commons health committee this morning Prof Derek Alderson, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said it was “completely unrealistic” to think that the NHS would be able to catch up with the backlog of surgery left unperformed during the coronavirus crisis within a matter of weeks. It could take “a few years” to catch up, he said. He explained:

We have to restore confidence in the public that they can have an elective operation safely with excellent results, as they enjoyed before the Covid crisis.

That means we’ll have to put some extra precautions in until we can establish that we’ve been doing elective surgery safely so, even if we can get going again, I think it’s slightly unrealistic to believe that we can get going at full speed very quickly.

I think that dealing with the backlog is not something that’s achievable simply in weeks - you know, we stopped for 12 weeks so we can catch up in 12 weeks - I mean, that to my mind, is completely unrealistic.

This is certainly many months, it may take us a few years to catch up, and as I say we have to be able to sustain that effort.

So we really do need a programme recovery of surgery and the sustainability of surgery that probably looks at four or five years in order to have a resilient system and take things forward in the best possible way.

This claim ought to worry ministers because a government paper from early April, Initial estimates of excess deaths from Covid-19 (pdf), that was released at the end of last week along with a large batch of Sage coronavirus papers, showed that at that point officials officials feared that there could be 185,000 deaths over the long term as a result of operations cancelled during the crisis - assuming those operations were not rescheduled. That number would dwarf what was then estimated to be the number of people expected to die directly from coronavirus, 50,000. The report explained:

Various evidence supports the estimate that 75% of elective care has been postponed, but it is unclear how long the postponement will be for. This activity represents around £17bn of expenditure over a 6-month period. If this activity were cancelled entirely it would result in an estimated 185,000 additional deaths ...

This is an upper-bound estimate for this scenario. The NHS will be prioritising life-saving treatments and will be hoping to postpone rather than cancel most of this treatment. However, there will be a knock-on impact on future patients as the NHS takes time to work through the backlog.

If services can be resumed quickly, most of the risk of mortality can likely be managed, but if there are continuing delays for a longer period, there could even be a proportionately greater impact than is estimated here, if long waiting lists build up and have a knock-on impact on future patients requiring healthcare.

This is from Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, on Thérèse Coffey’s “water cannot be disconnected though” response to Marcus Rashford (see 9.09am and 11.05am).

In an interview with LBC this morning Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, said that the government was likely to announce its plans for “travel corridors” - agreements with other countries for mutual exemptions from quarantine laws - at the end of this month. Asked when that announcement might come, he said:

We won’t be in a position to announce which countries - where reciprocal arrangements go in place - until the 29th. So don’t expect anything this week, I think I’m right in saying it’s only the end of next week.

June 29 is the date for the government’s first review of its controversial quarantine policy, which came into force last week.

The FT’s Sebastian Payne has more on the “global Britain” statement coming from Boris Johnson later. (See 11.25am.) Johnson, a former foreign secretary, will announce a formal merger of the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development, Payne reports.

The Times’ Esther Webber has posted the line being sent to Tory MPs defending the government’s decision not to back Marcus Rashford’s call for the free school meal scheme to be extended in England to cover the summer holidays.

The Department for Education made more or less the same arguments in this blog on its website yesterday defending the government’s position.

A woman walks past a sign in the window of a shop in Oxford Street, London, this morning announcing that it has re-opened.
A woman walks past a sign in the window of a shop in Oxford Street, London, this morning announcing that it has re-opened. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

These are from the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg on the Commons statement on “global Britain” that we are getting from Boris Johnson later. Unusually No 10 has been refusing to give details of what it’s about.

And this is from the Financial Times’ Sebastian Payne.

Transport for London to increase congestion charge to prevent surge in road traffic

Transport for London will next week increase the congestion charge and enforce it through weekends and evenings in a bid to stop the surge in vehicle traffic in the capital.

The charge to drive a car into central London will rise to £15 a day and apply from 7am-10pm, seven days a week, from 22 June, as transport authorities try to avert gridlock.

Passenger numbers on the tube and bus have only risen slightly this week, as people continue to avoid public transport, but as the Covid-19 restrictions ease motor traffic has already reached pre-lockdownlevels, TfL say.

The charge, along with the ultra-low emission charge, was suspended at the start of lockdown in March when London’s streets were empty. Now though TfL say a hike is necessary, or traffic is forecast to grow to double normal levels, causing widespread congestion and pollution, and disruption to the bus network.

London has been trying to encourage walking and cycling, widening pavements and giving new sections of road lanes over to non-motorised traffic.

TfL said the increase in the charge from £11.50 a day was a temporary move, agreed as part of the £1.6bn funding agreement with central government to help offset lost revenue, mainly from the tube. NHS workers will be exempt.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan:

Coronavirus continues to present our city with unprecedented challenges but I am determined to ensure that we emerge from this pandemic with a cleaner, greener and more sustainable transport system.

The reality is that due to social distancing requirements public transport can only carry a fraction of the number of passengers compared to pre-pandemic levels. While capacity on the network needs to be preserved for those people who need it most, we can’t allow journeys that were previously taken on public transport to be replaced with car trips.

Rush hour traffic at Clapham Common in London this morning.
Rush hour traffic at Clapham Common in London this morning. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Updated

'We're working to same aim' - cabinet minister Thérèse Coffey seeks to defuse free school meals row with Marcus Rashford

Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, has responded on Twitter to the England footballer Marcus Rashford, who complained earlier that her only engagement with his campaign for the free school meal scheme to be extended in England over the summer holidays was a post apparently fact-checking one of his claims.

As we reported earlier, Coffey said earlier that Rashford was wrong to say poor families risked having their water cut off. (See 9.09am.)

Rashford responded with this post on Twitter.

And Coffey later claimed that Rashford and the government were “working to the same aim”.

In an interview with BBC News earlier the Conservative MP David Simmonds defended the government’s decision not to fund the free school meal programme over the summer, saying that there were better ways of targeting the money available at those families most in need.

Asked about Coffey’s original response to Rashford tweets (“water cannot be disconnected though”), Simmonds at first sidestepped the question. But he added that, from his 20 years’ experience as a councillor, some people did get their water cut off, even though the rules said that was not meant to happen.

Updated

This is from Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former joint chief of staff in Downing Street. He thinks the government will end up backing down over free school meals.

Updated

Lawyers have said that growing evidence of a link between air pollution and the impact of coronavirus means the government has a legal obligation to urgently review its air quality strategy – the Guardian’s environment editor, Damian Carrington, reports.

In a letter to ministers, the lawyers argue that refusing to order a review would breach UK law, the precautionary principle and the European convention on human rights.

Dirty air is estimated to cause 40,000 early deaths a year in the UK, and evidence is mounting that it is linked to increased Covid-19 infection rates and death rates. The lawyers, acting for Mums for Lungs and the Good Law Project, say this potential risk to life means ministers must act even if the evidence is not yet conclusive.

The full story is here.

Updated

Excess deaths in UK during Covid crisis have reached 64,500, says ONS

Nick Stripe, head of the health analysis and life events division at the ONS, has posted a useful Twitter thread on the ONS statistics. It starts here.

And here are some of his key points.

  • Excess deaths in the UK are now running at about 64,500, the ONS says. Excess deaths means all deaths above the seasonal average. They include deaths directly attributed to coronavirus, but also deaths otherwise related to the pandemic. Scientists and politicians have repeatedly said that the excess death rate is the best measure of the impact of the virus on the UK.
  • There have been 26,600 excess deaths in care homes in England and Wales since the pandemic began, the ONS says.
  • There have been 15,400 excess deaths in private homes in England and Wales since the pandemic began, the ONS says.

London first region in England and Wales to see death rate fall below seasonal average, says ONS

The Office for National Statistics has published its latest weekly death figures for England and Wales. These cover up to the week ending Friday 5 June (or week 23, as the ONS calls it.)

ONS coronavirus death figures are more thorough than the daily ones released by the Department of Health and Social Care. The DHSC figures only cover people who tested positive for coronavirus and died, whereas the ONS figures cover any death where coronavirus was mentioned as a factor on the death certificate.

Here are the main points.

  • Excess deaths - the number of deaths above the five-year average for this time of year - were still running at 7.3% in the first week of June. That amounted to 732 excess deaths. But, as this chart shows, the excess death rate is falling to what it was at the end of March. (Excess deaths are represented by the gap between the thick blue line, all deaths, and the dotted grey line, the five-year average for all deaths.)
Coronavirus deaths and excess death figures
Coronavirus deaths and excess death figures. Photograph: ONS
  • There were 335 excess deaths in care homes in week 23 (ie, 335 more than you would expect given the five-year average). But in hospitals in that week the number of deaths was 538 below the five-year average.
  • Deaths in London in the first week of June were below average. Other regions continued to record excess deaths (ie, more deaths than you would expect based on the average).
Excess deaths in first week of June in England and Wales by region.
Excess deaths in first week of June in England and Wales by region. Photograph: ONS
  • Coronavirus accounted for 14.8% of all deaths in England and Wales in the first week of June. There were 1,588 coronavirus deaths - the lowest number for nine weeks.

Updated

Another Conservative MP has come out in support of Rashford’s call for the free school meals scheme to be extended into the summer.

Some more evidence of disquiet among Tory MPs over the government’s refusal to extend the free school meals programme over the summer:

The education select committee chairman and Conservative MP for Harlow, Robert Halfon, has told BBC Breakfast that Britain could be facing “an ice age for vulnerable children”.

He said extending the free school meals programme “would be the right thing to do” but acknowledged there were mixed views among Conservative politicians.

Families have not only faced health worries but enormous financial anxieties and enormous stress, many of them being made redundant...

There are lots of food programmes across different government departments. If they just consolidated those programmes, they would almost have the money for the free school meals programme over the summer, which would cost roughly £110m.

Robert Halfon.
Robert Halfon. Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Media

Updated

Ruth Davidson, the former Conservative leader in Scotland, has said she is “baffled” as to why the UK government is resisting calls for free school meals to be extended over the summer holidays.

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, joining the blog for the day.

Here is the agenda showing what’s coming up.

9am: Senior medics and NHS leaders give evidence to the Commons health committee on delivering core NHS services during the pandemic.

9.30am: The ONS publishes weekly death figures for England and Wales.

Morning: Boris Johnson chairs cabinet.

12.30pm: The Scottish and Welsh governments hold their daily press briefings.

12.30pm: Jesse Norman, a Treasury minister, is due to answer a Commons urgent question about the furlough scheme.

Around 1.15pm: Johnson makes a Commons statement on “global Britain.”

Around 2.15pm: Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, gives a Commons statement about the post-Brexit trade talks.

2.30pm: The Commons justice committee takes evidence from Peter Clarke, the inspector of prisons, and others on BAME disproportionality in criminal justice system.

Around 3.15pm: MPs begin a three-hour debate on a Labour motion saying the government should fund the free school meal voucher scheme in England over the summer holidays.

5pm: UK government press conference.

Work and pensions secretary criticised for 'snarky' tweet

The work and pensions secretary – who oversees the government’s strategy on child poverty – has come in for a lot of criticism for this response to Marcus Rashford’s call for people to think about “parents who have had their water turned off during lockdown”.

The shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, wrote:

Imagine having priorities so warped that this snarky comment is your response to Marcus Rashford’s powerful campaign.

@theresecoffey do the right thing: apologise and vote for free school meals for children in poverty this summer.

Updated

Public would be unforgiving of second spike, says Shapps

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has been speaking to BBC Breakfast this morning. He said the public would be “rightfully very unforgiving” if the UK experienced a second spike of coronavirus. He also said the government would not amend the 2-metre social distancing restriction until 4 July at the earliest.

We need to make sure that what we do next doesn’t mean that we end up in a situation where the virus comes back in a very big way again. People would be, I think rightly, very unforgiving about the second spike.

He was asked about yesterday’s criticism following the government’s launch of a racism commission. Labour pointed out that a string of similar inquiries and reports had completed recently and said it was time for “deeds not words”.

Shapps said:

It isn’t that nothing is going to happen in the meantime ... in fact, already we have seen over the last 10 years or so, much higher numbers of black, Asian and minority ethnic 18-year-olds ending up at university - it’s gone up absolutely dramatically.

Of course, actually, in government, the top spots, the home secretary, the chancellor of the exchequer, are now positions occupied by BAME individuals.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps
Grant Shapps. Photograph: Andrew Parsons/10 Downing Street/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Footballer Marcus Rashford has been tweeting about his campaign for the government to extend the free school meals scheme into the summer, with the hashtag #maketheuturn

Updated

Long-Bailey: free school meals 'is not about party politics'

The shadow education secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, has been speaking to the BBC about the government’s refusal to extend the free school meals scheme into the summer during the coronavirus crisis. She said:

As this crisis has brought out the best in many of us I think it’s only right for the government to fund free school meals to look after those children so that they’re not hungry, and can spend their time over the summer building up their academic base so that they’re in a position to start learning properly in September.

She pointed to Scotland and Wales: “They are going to do this over the summer holidays for their children, so why can’t the government in England do the same?”

Looking ahead to today’s opposition day debate on the subject, Long Bailey added:

There will be many Conservative MPs today watching this and having read Marcus’ letter who will be agonising about whether they support the government or not in this because they will want what’s best for children.

So, I’m asking all politicians, whatever party they’re in, this is not about party politics, this is about making sure children don’t go hungry over the summer holidays.

Updated

Number of people on UK payrolls drops by 600,000

As I mentioned briefly earlier, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released its latest employment statistics this morning.

The new figures suggest the down turn has yet to feed through fully into unemployment thanks to the job retention scheme. But there was a sharp drop in the number of paid employees, down by 2.1% or 612,000 in May compared with March, and a huge increase in benefit claims.

The ONS said there was a decline in hours worked by people in jobs, while jobless claims under universal credit jumped 23.3% month-on-month in May to 2.8 million and soared 125.9% or 1.6 million since March when the UK was placed in lockdown.

ONS deputy national statistician Jonathan Athow said: “The slowdown in the economy is now visibly hitting the labour market, especially in terms of hours worked.” He added: “We haven’t quite seen the down turn feed through into unemployment yet.”

You can get the latest updates on this on our Business Live Blog here.

Updated

Rashford calls on PM to 'do right thing' over school meals

Manchester United and England striker Marcus Rashford, who called yesterday for the government to extend its free school meals voucher system for low-income families over the summer holiday period, is not easily deterred.

Despite Downing Street rejecting his plea, Rashford has a column in the Times this morning, in which he writes:

And when you head to the fridge to grab the milk, stop and recognise that parents of at least 200,000 children across the country are waking up to empty shelves and the innocent question “why?”. Today nine out of thirty children in any given classroom are asking why. Why does their future not matter?

This is the devastating reality of child poverty in England in 2020. This is a pandemic that will last generations if we don’t change our thinking now.

He concludes:

Please, do the right thing and extend the free food voucher scheme throughout the school summer holidays. Give our vulnerable families just one less thing to worry about.

Labour will use an opposition day debate in the Commons today to demand free school meals vouchers are extended over the holidays during the coronavirus crisis.

The prime minister’s official spokesman confirmed yesterday that the scheme will end when the school term ends, saying Rashford had been “using his profile in a positive way to highlight some very important issues”.

The PM understands the issues facing families across the UK, which is why last week the government announced an additional £63m for local authorities to benefit families who are struggling to afford food and other basic essentials.

Marcus Rashford refuses to give up on campaign to extend free school meals
Marcus Rashford refuses to give up on campaign to extend free school meals. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA

Updated

Two-metre rule has no basis in science, say scientists

The scale of discontent among Conservative backbenchers over the 2 metre rule was clear yesterday, when senior Tory MPs publicly urged Boris Johnson to cut it down to 1 metre or 1.5 meter. Scientists tell the Telegraph today that the 2-metre rule has no basis in science. Professors Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson, from the University of Oxford, write:

Queuing outside shops, dodging each other once inside, and not getting too close to other people anywhere: social-distancing has become the norm. The two-metre rule, however, is also seriously impacting schools, pubs, restaurants and our ability to go about our daily lives.

Much of the evidence in this current outbreak informing policy is poor quality. Encouragement and handwashing are what we need, not formalised rules.

Meanwhile, 90 firms – including Wagamama and Pizza Hut – have written to the prime minister to say the sector faces massive job cuts without more help and if the 2-metre rule remained in place. You can read the story on the BBC here.

Updated

Good morning and welcome to our UK news blog, which will take in developments in the coronavirus crisis and the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Office for National Statistics has released official employment figures, revealing that paid employees dropped by 2.1% or 612,000 in May compared with March. The number of people temporarily away from work, including furloughed workers, rose by 6 million at the end of March into April.

The former Conservative party leader William Hague, writing in the Telegraph in advance of the publication of the data, said the coronavirus lockdown has been a “disaster for our society” that will cause economic catastrophe for hundreds of thousands of people. He said that, like Dunkirk, lockdown has been “a heroic operation in itself but the result of a massive failure”.

We now know that a lockdown is not a temporary blip or a paid holiday, but a disaster for our society. It is increasing inequality, social tension and unaffordable debt. Such a disaster cannot under any circumstances be repeated. There can be no second lockdown.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, will be speaking to broadcasters this morning, so I’ll bring you the highlights from that. The business secretary, Alok Sharma, is due to answer questions from MPs in the Commons around 11.30am. The shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, will then ask an urgent question on the impact of corona on the economy, which will be responded to by Jesse Norman, financial secretary to the Treasury.

I’m Frances Perraudin and I’ll be bringing you updates this morning. You can email me on frances.perraudin@theguardian.com if you think there’s something I’ve missed and contact me on twitter on @fperraudin.

Updated

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