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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

UK coronavirus live: demand for Covid tests outstripping capacity, MPs told – as it happened

Afternoon summary

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

These are from the Sun’s Brussels correspondent Nick Gutteridge, speculating on how the EU might respond to the UK government pressing ahead with the internal market bill.

North Yorkshire’s emergency services have gone into “full emergency mode” due to a rise in coronavirus cases and nationwide issues with testing capacity, Sky News is reporting.

Back to the internal market bill, and these are from the BBC’s Jessica Parker earlier today.

Sir Keir Starmer has indicated he will instruct Richard Leonard to bury the hatchet with Scottish Labour party rebels who tried to unseat him as Scottish leader last weekend during a private meeting in Edinburgh today.

Talking to reporters during his first visit to Scotland as UK party leader, Starmer was asked about Leonard’s threat last week to deselect centrist MSPs who called for him to quit following Scottish Labour collapse in polling support, and also about the Scottish party’s refusal to allow a leadership challenge. Leonard was an ally of Jeremy Corbyn.

Starmer said he had been elected on a platform of reunifying Labour following the Corbyn era. He went on:

That’s why I’m talking to colleagues in Scottish Labour today. What I want to see here in Scotland is our party pull together and to focus on the job in hand, what we need to do between now and May. So that’s why I’m here.

Starmer insisted he had an “excellent working relationship” with Leonard but accepted the party had “a considerable task” regaining trust with voters.

He also dodged a question on the significant tensions Labour faces in Scotland over his stance on Brexit next May. With support for independence now at 54%, the Scottish National party and Scottish Greens will attack Starmer’s position that the EU question is now settled. Asked about that tension, he simply said:

We’ve left the EU and the leave/remain side is over; we’ve left the EU and there isn’t really a case for rejoining. Therefore we’ve got to focus on getting a deal and it’s in our interests to get a deal. No deal would be a catastrophic failure of the negotiations by the prime minister.

Keir Starmer (2nd from left) visiting the University of Edinburgh School of Medicine today.
Keir Starmer (2nd from left) visiting the University of Edinburgh School of Medicine today. Photograph: Jane Barlow/AFP/Getty Images

The coronavirus is evolving slowly, researchers have confirmed, in a report that is a glimmer of good news for vaccine researchers.

The report, released by the Royal Society’s Science in Emergencies Tasking: Covid-19 group, reveals that while the genome of the virus has shown some mutations, these do not appear to be making the virus more dangerous.

Indeed such changes could actually be useful, with the team noting they can be harnessed to probe the spread of Covid-19 in hospitals, schools and other settings.

While the report notes the evolving genome of the virus should be considered when it comes to testing to make sure cases are not missed, it says the changes seen so far mean the virus is unlikely to outflank vaccines currently under development.

“The genome variation seen hitherto is unlikely to enable virus escape from immune responses induced by vaccination or prior infection,” the team write.

Greg Clark is ending the science committee hearing now. He tells Dido Harding and Lord Bethell that the committee appreciates the work they are doing, and the public service they are giving.

But he says it is important to learn lessons. One of the things the committee has discovered is that “there is always something around the corner”.

And that’s it. The hearing is over.

Back in the science committee Labour’s Dawn Butler said earlier this year Matt Hancock, the health secretary, suggested he did not want to reorganised Public Health England. A few weeks later he announced he was abolishing it. What changed?

Lord Bethell, the health minister, said the assessment of what the benefits of a reorganisation might be changed. And he said there was a window of opportunity in the summer (when cases were relatively low) when this could be done.

Thailand and Singapore added to England's travel corridor list, meaning arrivals exempt from quarantine

Thailand and Singapore are being added to England’s travel corridor, meaning arrivals from the countries will no longer have to quarantine for a fortnight.

Denmark was widely anticipated to be dropped from the list of locations exempted from isolation measures, after worsening Covid-19 rates, but has escaped removal this week.

In other moves announced by transport secretary Grant Shapps, Slovenia and Guadeloupe, a French overseas region consisting of an archipelago of islands in the Caribbean, are being removed from England’s travel corridor after an increase in Covid cases.

The measures will come into force on Saturday at 4am. UK residents made 389,000 visits to Thailand in 2019, according to estimates produced by the Office for National Statistics. Meanwhile, the government says around 450,000 Britons visit Singapore each year.

Lord Bethell says many people in the country are very frustrated and angry about the testing shortages.

But he says he is also proud of the way British business has built up the testing service from scratch.

Q: What is the biggest mistake you have made?

Bethell says they have made plenty of mistake.

He says he thinks some people think getting a test on its own is a solution. He says testing only works if they self-isolate too when they have to.

I think, gosh, listen - we have made plenty of mistakes along the way.

I think that where we are sitting right now, we have to be really clear with people about the way in which this infection works and the way it harbours in the body because there is a temptation to believe that having a test somehow is a cure, or if not a cure, is a way out of your commitment to isolate.

And the Test and Trace programme really only is effective if people do isolate if they have tested positive or have been in contact with people who have tested positive.

Trying to convey that message is very challenging and getting that right is something we still have a lot of work to do on.

Labour’s Graham Stringer says government messaging has been misleading. Ministers have been quoting the average distance travelled by people to a test. But that does not take account of people not travelling because they are told to go to far.

Bethell says that a 40-page statistical bulletin was published this morning (the regular weekly update). He says they have been very transparent.

Updated

Back in the science committee Greg Clark, the chair, asks if NHS Test and Trace will do its own modelling for what demand for tests might be.

Dido Harding, the head of NHS Test and Trace, says they will continue to work with groups that provide modelling.

Pedestrians will be given priority over cars at dozens of crossings in London after successful trials of a radical plan to keep the “green man” signal – and a red light for traffic - displayed as a default.

Transport for London said the move, a first for the UK, would help encourage more journeys by foot as travel grows after the pandemic, while improving safety.

The red man signal at pedestrian crossings will only be shown if vehicles are in the vicinity, using technology which has been trialled in eight-month long tests at locations near the Millennium Bridge and the Shard. Another 20 crossings around London boroughs will be re-programmed this month.

The trials showed that it would minimise waiting time for pedestrians and did not significantly affect road traffic flow. TfL said research showed that at normal pedestrian crossings more than 50% of people attempt to cross within five seconds, irrespective of the signal, risking accidents.

As part of broader moves to encourage more walking journeys on everyday trips, TfL and London Living Streets have also launched a new Footways map highlighting “safe and attractive” routes between stations and key locations around the capital.

Commuters in London crossing London Bridge this morning.
Commuters in London crossing London Bridge this morning.
 Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters

Greg Clark, the committee chair, says the WHO advice is that the distance metric should be within 1 metre for 15 minutes, not within 2 metres.

Lord Bethell, the health minister, says it was felt that a 1 metre metric would throw up too many false results.

Q: Can you write to the committee to explain your reasoning for this?

Yes, says Bethell. And he says this can be “tweaked” in the future.

Updated

Back in the Commons science committee, Dido Harding says the app being launched in England uses the same contact-tracing technology as the Scottish app. But it also uses QR codes, she says. And she says although the app has not yet been formally launched, it is being piloted, and 15,000 businesses have downloaded the QR code.

Updated

A ‘Thank You NHS’ Spitfire flying over the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh today during a tour around Scottish hospitals to raise money for NHS Charities Together.
A ‘Thank You NHS’ Spitfire flying over the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh today during a tour around Scottish hospitals to raise money for NHS Charities Together. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

Updated

The Scottish secretary, Alister Jack, has accused Nicola Sturgeon on introducing different coronavirus guidance “for the sake of it”, as well as suggesting that Jeane Freeman, the Scottish government’s health secretary, misled a Commons committee by allegedly claiming in June that she could not recall any communication with him.

After reports of Jack’s accusations at the Scottish affairs committee emerged, Freeman retweeted a transcript of her own evidence to the same committee, in which she clearly states that both were present at a meeting with her UK counterpart, Matt Hancock.

Earlier today, Jack told MPs:

We need to stop the confusion. All the administrations in these weekly meetings we have should actually just be grown up, and not be different for the sake of it for whatever agenda they have. It hasn’t brought anyone to a different outcome - the prevalence of the virus is as high in any part of the UK as any other. On average all four nations are experiencing similar problems.

Updated

UK records 3,395 more coronavirus cases

The UK has recorded 21 more coronavirus deaths and 3,395 more coronavirus cases, according to the latest updates on the government’s coronavirus dashboard.

Here is the latest graph for case numbers.

Gov.UK
Gov.UK Photograph: Gov.UK

Lord Bethell, the health minister in charge of test and trace, is joining the hearing now.

Clark asks him about the app. Bethell says he has the app on his phone, and it is very impressive. He has been using it, he says.

He says businesses have been trialling it.

Q: What are the main features of the app?

Simon Thompson, managing director of the NHS Covid-19 app, is answering.

He says it has a capability called alert. It will tell people what is happening in their area.

And there is a capability called check in. Using QR codes, the app can get in touch with people who have been to particular places.

There is a symptom checker, which tells people if they need to get a test.

And there is a companion feature, that tells people how long they need to isolate for.

The app is also a contact-tracing app. It will monitor how close you are to people. If someone you have been close to tests positive, you will get an alert.

Q: If you are told to self-isolate, is it compulsory to follow the advice?

Bethell says this has not been mandated by law.

Q: What is the proximity threshold - within 2 metres of someone for at least 15 minutes?

That’s right, says Thompson.

Q: And does it know if there has been a perspex screen between you and the other person?

Thompson says people are advised to switch off contact tracing in three circumstances: you might be wearing PPE, you might be protected by a screen, or you might have left your phone in a locker.

Updated

Q: What proportion of people asked to self-isolate develop Covid?

Harding says she does not know.

They do not test people asked to self-isolate.

If people tested negative, then they might go back to work when it was not safe to do so, she says.

Harding also said turnaround times have got longer because the service is processing more tests. That was deliberate, she said.

Clark says if two-thirds of people are not getting their test results within 24 hours, that is a failure.

Should NHS test and trace be measuring time taken from a person getting a test to contacts being asked to self-isolate?

Harding says NHS test and trace is judged by many metrics.

One target is for 80% of people testing positive to be reached so they can be asked about their contacts. She says the service is reaching 83.3%.

And it is meant to reach 80% of close contacts. And it is reaching 86.6% of close contacts where contact details have been provided, she says.

But she accepts that reducing the end-to-end time taken is important.

Updated

Clark says the PM’s target was for 24-hour turnaround. Yet Harding is quoting next day turnaround. What are the figures for 24-hour turnaround?

Harding says they focus on next day turnaround. Otherwise they would be giving people results in the middle of the night, she says.

Clark quotes the 24-hour figure - 33.3%. (See 11.49am.) He says 24-hour turnaround is important. The government’s Scientific Advisory Committee for Emergencies said test results had to be delivered quickly. The sooner they are delivered, the sooner those being tested, and their contacts, can be asked to self-isolate.

Updated

Labour’s Graham Stringer goes next.

Q: How did you become interim executive chair of the National Institute for Health Protection? (This is the body replacing Public Health England - Harding holds this post alongside being head of NHS Test and Trace.)

Harding says she did not apply. She was asked to do this job. And she accepted because she wanted to serve her country. She is working unpaid, she says. And she says a permanent chair will be appointed.

Clark says the PM promised in June that there would be 100% turnaround within 24 hours.

Harding says they have mostly delivered 90% next day turnaround.

Q: The figure for home test kits is 9%.

Harding says she is quoting figures for in-person tests. Home tests have always taken longer, because kits go into the post.

She says they have been prioritising in-person tests because they can be processed more quickly.

Q: At one point ministers suggested home tests were the solution?

Harding says that made sense at the time, but in-person testing is faster.

Updated

Harding says test results are taking “slightly longer than usual”, as today’s figures showed. (See 11.49am.)

Harding says there will be substantial increases in lab capacity every week between now and the end of October.

She says robotic processing capacities are being introduced.

Additional laboratories are being created, including one in Newport.

A number of different initiatives will take capacity to 500,000 tests per day by the end of October, she says.

She is “very confident” this will be met, she says.

Harding says the number of tests being processed abroad is in the low tens of thousands.

The Labour MP Dawn Butler asked about reports that Randox, one of the private firms processing tests, was unable to process thousands of tests. Was it paid for these?

They disposed of 12,401 used swabs in a single day on September 2, and they also voided more than 35,000 used test kits since the start of August. The company has not denied charging the taxpayer for voided results, can you confirm that the taxpayer has been charged?

Harding says she cannot comment, because this episode is still being investigated, she says.

You’re referring to a couple of incidents that are still ongoing, so at this stage I can’t confirm or deny that. We are working through with Randox and with the MHRA [the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency] to understand the root cause of what’s actually happened.

Updated

Harding says for a couple of days last week laboratories were running at over 100% of capacity. She says they were worried about that - implying there were concerns about whether processes could be properly followed like that.

Harding says there are two to three times as many people being tested in high prevalence areas.

Q: Is is true London council leaders have been told its testing capacity is being cut by 20%?

Harding says the number of tests allocated for London has come down, because of the need to prioritise places where the case numbers are higher. But she says she cannot confirm the 20% figure.

Harding says she knows that people find it frustrating seeing testing centres empty.

We have to restrict the number of people who are taking tests in the testing sites so that there’s no risk of those tests going out of date when they are processed in the labs.

So I do understand how frustrating it feels that when you arrive in the testing site and it doesn’t look like it’s very busy and you can see it could do more, but the capacity constraint isn’t in those testing sites, it’s back in the lab.

And it would be very dangerous to send too many samples back to the laboratory, have them not be processed and people not know what their results were.

Updated

More from Dido Harding’s evidence to the science committee

Up to four times as many people may be wanting Covid tests as can get them, MPs told

This is what Dido Harding told the committee about what the level of demand for tests is. She said:

There’s significantly more demand than there is capacity today.

The best way we have of estimating the total demand at the moment is the number of people calling 119 and the number of visits to the website ... The number of people calling 119 and visiting the website would three to four times the number of tests that we currently have available, but there will be some double counting in that. People will call from their home line and then from their mobile.

Asked for an estimate of what the demand was, she replied: “It is multiples of the test capacity that we have today.”

Updated

Dido Harding questioned by MPs about NHS Test and Trace

Dido Harding is giving evidence to the Commons science committee now.

Greg Clark, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, goes first.

Asked what the testing capacity is, Harding says it is 242,817. She says 82,817 is NHS capacity, and 160,000 is pillar 2 capacity (commercial testing at places such as drive-through centres).

Q: What is the demand for tests?

Harding says it is hard to say. People sometimes try to book a test more than once, using different devices. But she says that the figure will be “multiples” of what the capacity is.

Q: How do you know that 27% of people are seeking a test when they don’t have symptoms? When booking, they have to say they have symptoms.

Harding says the organisation has used post-test surveys to find this out.

Updated

NHS England has recorded a further 18 coronavirus hospital deaths. The full details are here.

In Scotland there have been no further deaths, but 290 new cases, with 4% of people testing positive. (Yesterday’s figure was 3.6%.)

Public Health Wales has recorded three new deaths and 168 new cases.

And in Northern Ireland there have been 149 new cases, but no further deaths.

The Commons science committee has been taking evidence from Thomas Waite, director of the Joint Biosecurity Centre. He was asked about the claim floated by Anthony Costello last night that infections could be running at 38,000 per day. (See 9.06am.) He said “that’s not a figure I directly recognise” and went on to say that it may come from one of the many models SPI-M has. “SPI-M have a number of different models and there is a value in that,” he said.

Asked by Greg Clark, the committee chair, if it sounds about right that there are about 10 times as many infections as are picked up, he said: “I don’t think that sounds right.”

Updated

Back to coronavirus, and this is from Tom Copley, the deputy mayor of London for housing.

Government's latest concessions on internal market bill - Verdict from Twitter commentariat

Here is some reaction to the government’s latest statement on the internal market bill (see 2.21pm) from Brexit specialist commentators on Twitter.

From the Times’ Bruno Waterfield

From my colleague Daniel Boffey

From Times Radio’s Tom Newton Dunn

From the Financial Times’ Peter Foster

From Raoul Ruparel, EU adviser to Theresa May when she was PM

From Prof Mark Elliott, professor of public law at Cambridge University

From Katy Hayward, an academic and Brexit specialist at Queen’s University, Belfast

From the Economist’s Matthew Holehouse

Updated

Nicola Sturgeon was pressed at FMQs about visiting guidelines for care facilities, after families of care home residents lobbied members outside Holyrood yesterday, calling for a relaxation in “draconian” visiting guidelines.

Sturgeon said that she understood how difficult this time was for people who had loved ones in care homes, adding that “visiting is a fundamental part of health and wellbeing. She said that around 40% of homes were now facilitating indoor visits, but that she also recognised that wider principle was at stake, not just about visiting but also about recognising the role of family members play in caring for their relatives.

She said that the health secretary would be meeting family members campaigning for better visiting facilities tomorrow, and that she “hoped to open up further options for families as soon as it is safe to do so”. But she added that, having facing ongoing criticism about numbers of care home deaths, nobody should doubt “the real weight of responsibility we feel in reaching these decisions”.

Sturgeon also confirmed that there were 290 new Covid cases yesterday, with 112 in Greater Glasgow and Clyde and 52 in Lanarkshire, where a ban on indoor gatherings between households remains in place, as well as 47 in Lothian.

Nicola Sturgeon at FMQs in the Scottish parliament today.
Nicola Sturgeon at FMQs in the Scottish parliament today. Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

Updated

Ministers warned funding for local public health services 'woefully short' of what's needed

Local public health officials appear to have lost patience with the government’s response to rising cases of Covid-19.

Jeanelle de Gruchy, the president of the Association of Directors of Public Health has delivered a stinging attack on the approach in a blogpost this afternoon. She says:

The situation is simply unsustainable. We cannot keep our communities safe on a shoestring.

In what amounts to a call for billions in centralised resources to be redistributed to local officials, she warns:

There is a tipping point on the horizon for councils. An emergency funding package for local outbreak prevention and management is now urgent – we need more people in our places and money into our councils to get the work done.

De Gruchy is the director of public health in Tameside, Greater Manchester where there have been at least 20 Covid-19 fatalities in the local hospital.

She said that the resources available to her colleagues nationally “fall woefully short of the scale of the task”, and in a swipe at Boris Johnson’s £100bn “moonshot” bid to start testing 10 million people a day, she said:

Rather than aiming for the moon, the priority must be getting the test and trace service working as comprehensively, effectively and quickly as possible. Without that, the virus will pass unchecked through our communities.

Speaking to thousands of public health officials exhausted at the prospect of a second wave she added:

I know half a year of lost evenings, weekends and holidays takes its toll – and we are all missing spending time with loved ones and friends. We must remember that we are human beings and, like everyone else, struggle to juggle what sometimes seems like a hundred balls at once.

Updated

How significant are No 10's latest concessions over internal market bill?

Downing Street has just issued a statement explaining in what circumstances it would use the provisions in the internal market bill (IMB) allowing it to overrule the withdrawal agreement (in breach of international law). This is a crucial issue. As discussed earlier (see 10.43am), Lord Keen of Elie seems to have resigned as advocate general for Scotland because he was worried that the powers in the bill were not there just for use as a last resort.

Overall today’s statement will go some way to defuse the row about the bill. But it will do more to appease Tory MPs and peers worried about the legislation than anyone in Brussels, and it does not amount to a clear climbdown. Judging by the instant reaction on Twitter, opinion as to the significance of the statement is very divided.

The full statement, entitled “Government statement on notwithstanding clauses”, is here. Here’s a guide to its conciliatory features – and its less conciliatory features.

Conciliatory features

1) The internal market bill is enormously provocative because it gives the UK government powers to ignore parts of the withdrawal agreement it signed less than a year ago – and because the very act of passing the bill would also arguably break international law, even if those powers were never used. Today’s statement says, effectively, that the UK would only use those powers in the bill if the EU breached the withdrawal agreement first. It says in its first paragraph:

HMG will ask parliament to support the use of the provisions in clauses 42, 43 and 45 of the UKIM bill, and any similar subsequent provisions, only in the case of, in our view, the EU being engaged in a material breach of its duties of good faith or other obligations, and thereby undermining the fundamental purpose of the Northern Ireland protocol.

2) The statement accepts that goods going from Britain to Northern Ireland should be liable to tariffs or import VAT if there is a “real risk” of their entering Ireland. This is only what the withdrawal agreement says, but the publication of the IMB suggested the UK was trying to wriggle out of this commitment.

3) The statement says that the UK is committed to using the dispute settlement mechanisms in the withdrawal agreement. Again, this is only something the government signed up to in January, but publication of the IMB implied the government would not use these procedures. The statement says:

HMG confirms that in parallel with the use of these provisions it would always activate appropriate formal dispute settlement mechanisms with the aim of finding a solution through this route.

The final clause – “with the aim of finding a solution through this route” – implies using the dispute resolution mechanisms would take precedence over using the powers in the IMB.

4) The statement accepts that EU state aid law would apply to firms’ operations in Northern Ireland. Again, this is only what the government signed up for in the withdrawal agreement, but the publication of the IMB suggested it was having second thoughts. The statement says that what the UK would object to would be any attempt to apply EU state aid rules to firms’ operations in Britain if they had just a “trivial” link to commercial operations in Northern Ireland.

5) The statement says it would be unacceptable for the EU to refuse to grant the UK third-country listing for agricultural goods “for manifestly unreasonable or poorly justified reasons”. Until now the government has implied that any refusal to grant third country listing would be unacceptable. The prospect of the EU refusing listing seems remote, but Boris Johnson has offered it as his main justification for the IMB.

On the other hand ...

Less conciliatory features

1) The statement does not quite commit the government to only using powers in the IMB once the dispute settlement mechanisms in the withdrawal agreement are exhausted. It implies this – see 3) above – but it also says the IMB powers would be activated “in parallel”, which implies something different.

2) The statement does not explicitly commit the government to always accepting the outcome of any dispute settlement. Yesterday Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, refused to give a commitment on this.

3) The statement says the UK would regard any EU insistence on exit summary declarations for goods going from Northern Ireland to Britain as justification for using powers under the IMB. As one example of what it would view as a breach of the agreement by the EU, it cites:

Insistence on paperwork requirements (export declarations) for NI goods going to GB, thereby compromising the principle of “unfettered access” in article 6 of the protocol.

The UK claims the “unfettered access” clause in the protocol means the exit summary declarations should not apply. But elsewhere the protocol says they should apply for NI/GB trade, and the EU is insisting on them. This issue matters to Johnson because in the election campaign last year he famously told Northern Ireland business leaders that he wanted any such forms thrown in the bin – even though the deal he had agreed did require them, as other government ministers admitted. It is as if No 10 is now trying to retrospectively justify what Johnson said.

Updated

At the end of Matt Hancock’s Commons statement, the Twickenham MP Munira Wilson used a point of order to object to what he said earlier (see 12.39pm) about her being wrong about people in Twickenham being able to book tests in the town by pretending to live in Aberdeen. She said she had emails to back up her claims, and suggested that Hancock was accusing his constituents of lying. Hancock said that he had looked into this after Wilson first raised the point on Tuesday and that he had been assured that safeguards were in place in the booking system to stop this happening.

Rees-Mogg criticises Labour for 'endless carping' about unavailability of tests

In the Commons, in response to complaints about the unavailability of tests, Matt Hancock adopted a reasonably sympathetic tone. But his cabinet colleague Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, was much more confrontational during the business statement earlier when he was asked about testing.

In response to criticism of testing from Labour’s Valerie Vaz, Rees-Mogg said:

We all have an obligation to try and stop the dangerous disease spreading, but the issue of testing is one where we have gone from a disease that nobody knew about a few months ago to one where nearly a quarter of a million people a day can be tested.

And the prime minister is expecting that to go up to half a million people a day by the end of October.

And instead of this endless carping, saying it is difficult to get them, we should actually celebrate the phenomenal success of the British nation in getting up to a quarter of a million tests of a disease that nobody knew about until earlier in the year.

In the Commons a few minutes ago the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas, asked Hancock to condemn what Rees-Mogg said. In his reply Hancock ignored the point about Rees-Mogg and just told Lucas she should welcome the fact that testing capacity was increasing, and that 3,000 tests were carried out in Brighton last week.

Updated

An anti-independence campaign has said only a minority of Scots believe a second independence referendum should be a priority, with most saying next May’s Holyrood elections should focus primarily on the economy and public services.

Scotland in Union, a pro-UK group led by a former Labour MP, Pamela Nash, has attempted to dampen growing expectations of a second independence vote in the near future by asking voters to rank a new referendum against other topics.

Asked to select their top three choices, Survation found 58% of voters opted for tackling the coronavirus pandemic; with 50% prioritising the NHS and social care; 41% the economy; 23% jobs and 20% education. Those were the main five choices; 18% chose the environment and climate change, and 11% ranked constitutional affairs and independence as a top three priority.

Asked whether a second independence referendum was “a priority at this time”, 28% said yes and 63% said no, with 35% of SNP voters saying it was not a priority (57% of SNP voters said it was a priority). Asked if it would make Scotland more divided, 50% of all voters said it would and 35% said it would not.

Scotland in Union commissioned the poll after a surge in support for independence this year: most have found a yes majority, with the latest putting the yes vote as high as 55%, excluding don’t knows. Voters have responded positively to Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership during the coronavirus pandemic, pushing SNP support as high as 57%.

Updated

EU rejects Johnson's claim that it's not negotiating in good faith

Turning away from coronavirus for a moment, the European commission has rejected Boris Johnson’s claim that it is not carrying out Brexit negotiations in good faith. Johnson made the claim when giving evidence to the liaison committee yesterday. Today, at the regular European commission briefing, the commission’s chief spokesman Eric Mamer said:

We have a habit of not commenting on comments by third parties. But what I can say more generally is that I can point to our hundreds - literally hundreds - of international agreements signed with very, very different third parties of all kinds.

And I think that they testify to - as I think you say in English - a rather splendid track record when it comes to carrying out negotiations in good faith, and indeed even concluding them.

So what I would simply do is ask you to go and talk to those third parties with whom we have signed these agreements and further they will testify to the quality of our negotiation.

And I think that Michel Barnier showed in the context of the negotiations on the withdrawal agreement that even on extremely complex and politically sensitive issues the commission and indeed the EU negotiate in perfectly good faith.

Mamer also said the EU was still calling on the UK to drop the internal market bill - or at least the provisions allowing it to override the withdrawal agreement - by the end of this month, despite the concession to Tory MPs announced last night. He said:

We have as you know set out a position extremely clearly, it is in our statement, and it relates to those clauses being withdrawn from the law.

That position has not changed and we have asked the UK to do this at the earliest possible convenience and by the end of September at the latest. That has not changed.

Eric Mamer, the European commission’s chief spokesman.
Eric Mamer, the European commission’s chief spokesman. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

When Munira Wilson, the Lib Dem MP for Twickenham, asks about testing, Hancock criticises her for what she said about the system in the Commons two days ago. That was when Wilson said people in Twickenham were obtaining tests locally by pretending to live in Aberdeen. Hancock did not directly address this claim on Tuesday, but today he says Wilson made a claim that “turned out to be wrong”. He says MPs have a duty to explain things “fairly and straight and properly”.

Updated

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Con) asks Hancock if he will prioritise teachers for testing.

Hancock says test kits have already been sent to schools. Tests are available, he says.

In the Commons Labour’s Stella Creasy asked if the private contractors providing testing services would face a financial penalty for tests being unavailable.

Hancock ignored the question, and just said it was the duty of everyone contributing to the test and trace service to make it work as effectively as possible.

Hancock confirms new restrictions for people in north-east England

In his opening statement Hancock said the new restrictions in the north-east would affect people in Northumberland, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Gateshead, Sunderland and County Durham.

From Friday, residents in these areas will be banned from socialising with other people outside their own households or support bubble, while food and drink venues will be restricted to table service only, Hancock said.

Leisure and entertainment venues must close between 10pm and 5am.

Here is the Department for Health’s news release with the list of the 25 hospitals in England that will get a share of the £150m fund being allocated to expand and upgrade A&E facilities.

The release also provides more details of the scheme to get patients booking appointments for A&E through NHS 111. The scheme is being piloted in Cornwall, Portsmouth and south-east Hampshire, Blackpool and Warrington and will be rolled out more generally from December.

Commenting on the plan, Dr Cliff Mann, the NHS national clinical director for urgent and emergency care, said:

While emergency admissions are now back to near normal levels and 999 calls are actually above usual, Covid-19 infection control means rethinking how we safely look after people who might previously have been to an emergency department for a more minor condition. Local teams are working hard to expand and adapt services to ensure people can continue to get the care they need safely, whether that’s in hospital or closer to home.

This additional investment will help us continue the development of NHS 111 and provide a broader range of services, with direct booking that will ensure all patients can see the right clinicians in the right setting, and address the extra challenges posed by Covid-19 so that emergency departments can safely treat those patients who do require their services.

Updated

Hancock is responding to Ashworth.

Referring to NHS 111, Hancock says he wants to improve access to the NHS. The booking system will let A&E know when people are coming.

He says there is a plan for care homes to get PPE. Details will be set out shortly in the winter plan for social care.

On testing, Hancock says “of course there’s a challenge in testing”. But capacity is at record levels. The problem is, demand has gone up faster, he says.

He says the government has chosen to prioritise care home residents. Of the tests available, more than 100,000 a day are sent to care homes.

Labour should welcome prioritisation for testing, he says.

On contact tracing, Hancock criticises Ashworth for playing “a decisive card” because he was trying to differentiate between public and private. He says the two sides should work together.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, is responding.

He welcomes the extra funding for the NHS.

But he asks if triaging access to A&E will worsen health inequalities. And if it leads to more people going to GP surgeries, will they get more funding?

Does Hancock rule out reimposing nationwide rules on family visits to care homes?

Ashworth points out that Hancock did not cover testing in his statement. Four months ago Hancock said testing for all was established. He promised test and trace. But instead we have ended up with trace a test, he says.

He says in his Commons statement on Tuesday Hancock quoted many figures for the number of tests being carried out in MPs’ constituencies. But those figures were no comfort to people being asked to travel miles for a test.

Who will get priority under the new system?

Will the north-east get extra testing capacity?

When will poor-performing outsourcing firms be stripped of their test and trace contracts?

Ashworth says people made sacrifices during the lockdown. But the government did not honour its side of the bargain. It was meant to deliver a functioning test and trace system, but it failed.

Is the government ruling out a second national lockdown in all circumstances?

Updated

Hancock says winter is always a stretching time. But this winter presents particular challenges, he says.

He says a further £2.7bn has been allocated to the NHS to help it manage over the winter. This is in addition to money provided for PPE, he says.

He says the money will help hospitals tackle the backlog in operations.

He says many emergency departments are too small.

In August £300m was announced for emergency upgrades. He says more funding is now being allocated to expand more emergency departments.

The role of NHS 111 will be expanded, he says. Millions of people used it to get the best advice on coronavirus. He says people will not be turned away from emergency departments in serious situations. But the government is investing £24m in NHS 11 call handling capacity and it will build on trials to turn it into a gateway for emergency care. People will be able to use it to make a booking with the appropriate care. That could be a booking with a GP, but it could be a booking for A&E, he says.

He says this approach will be rolled out generally from December.

  • Hancock confirms NHS 111 will introduce a booking service for some patients visiting A&E in England.

Hancock says there have been concerning rises in infection rates in some parts of the north-east.

Local authorities wrote to him asking for tighter restrictions, he says.

And he says he is putting those in place.

He summarises the measures that were briefed overnight.

Updated

Matt Hancock's Commons statement

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is speaking now.

He says he will explain the new local restrictions, and measures being taken to prepare the NHS for winter.

Proportion of people getting in-person test results in 24 hours has halved, latest figures show

NHS test and trace has published its latest weekly performance statistics (pdf). Here are the main points.

  • A total of 18,371 new people tested positive for coronavirus in England in the week to 9 September, the figures show. That’s a 75% increase on the total for the previous week.
  • The number of people receiving in-person test results within 24 hours has halved, the figures show. The service has never been able to meet Boris Johnson’s target of delivering test results within 24 hours. But the latest figures show that in the week ending 9 September just 33.3% of people tested a regional site, local site or mobile testing unit - a so-called “in-person” test - received their result within 24 hours. This is down from 66.5% in the previous week.
  • The service reached 73.9% of people identified as close contacts of people who had tested positive for coronavirus in the week ending 9 September and told them to self-isolate, the figures show. That was an increase on the figure for the previous week, 69.5%, but well below the average performance since May, 78.1%, and below the unofficial 80% target set by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group of Emergencies for the service to be effective.

Updated

More than 1m people have now downloaded the Protect Scotland contact-tracing app, the Scottish government has announced.

Updated

One source of information on coronavirus taken seriously by scientists is the data from the Covid symptom app launched by a team from King’s College London. More than 4 million people have downloaded the app, and in an interview on the Today programme this morning Prof Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College, said that his findings suggested that, if people did not have severe headaches or fatigue, they probably did not have coronavirus. He said:

What we are learning from all these data points [is that] nearly everybody, 80% of people, in all the age groups in the first week reported quite severe headaches and tiredness, fatigue.

What we are seeing is, if people are particularly worried about colds and Covid, if they don’t have this combination of symptoms, quite severely, it’s highly unlikely that their symptoms are actually related [to coronavirus].

In a comment that may offer reassurance to thousands, he also said that people with a runny nose, or who were sneezing, almost certainly did not have coronavirus. He said:

We’ve also shown some negative signs in our app. So if you do have a runny nose, or congestion, or sneezing, that’s really a sign you absolutely do not have Covid.

Updated

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has accused the Scottish and UK governments of failing to collaborate effectively on the coronavirus and fighting endless constitutional wars over Brexit and independence, in an op ed for the Scotsman.

Starmer is visiting Scotland for the first time as leader today with the Scottish party in crisis: five days ago the Scottish party leader, Richard Leonard, very narrowly survived a no confidence motion after a rebellion by centrist Labour MSPs and peers over his leadership.

With Labour polling at between 14% and 18% before next May’s Holyrood elections, Starmer acknowledged the Scottish party “had a mountain to climb”. His article did not mention Leonard.

In an effort to carve out safer territory for Labour and reassert its claims to have delivered devolution, Starmer said both the Tories in London and the Scottish National party in Edinburgh were “banging on” about Europe and independence while they should be focusing on jointly combating the pandemic. He said:

Rather than acknowledging the deep problems with their response to the virus, like the current testing fiasco or the crisis in our care homes, they are dodging blame and attacking each other.

Labour in government created devolution so that decisions could be made closer to people. But, for that, we need governments to work in partnership. [So] I say to both governments: get a grip, focus on the job in hand and work together to defeat this virus. I continue to believe that a four-nations approach is the best response to the health and economic crises we face.

There was a misstep in the piece: Starmer accused the Scottish Tories of refusing to stand up to Boris Johnson over his move to ignore the EU withdrawal agreement. On Wednesday, Lord Keen, the Scottish advocate general in the UK government and former Scottish Tory party chair, quit in protest over precisely that.

Updated

New rules to bring number of people under some form of local lockdown to almost 10m

Restrictions reported to come into effect in the north-east tonight and those announced for Rhondda Cynon Taf in Wales will bring an additional 2.2m people under some form of local lockdown.

Assuming no other areas have lockdowns restrictions removed in the interim, this means 9.7m people in the UK - one in seven - will be under local restrictions designed to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Of the four nations the highest proportion of residents under lockdown are in Scotland, where the residents of the seven affected local authorities make up a third of the population.

Almost a quarter (23.7%) of Northern Ireland are restricted affecting those living in the Belfast council area, Ballymena town and specific postcodes.

More than 7 million people in England - one in eight - will be under local lockdown by the week’s end as will 422,000 people in Wales or 13.4% of people living in the country.

% of population affected by local lockdowns
% of population affected by local lockdowns Photograph: Guardian

Updated

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has written to the health secretary calling for testing in the capital to be increased significantly. Khan told members of the London assembly:

This is a critical moment in the fight against Covid-19. Many Londoners are being told there are no testing sites available in London.

The delays are preventing frontline workers from being able to do their jobs, and children are being kept away from their classrooms unnecessarily.

This failure is putting lives and livelihoods in jeopardy. We’ve known for months now that come the autumn demand for testing would increase. This crunch point should have been foreseen, and then avoided.

And unless the government massively ramps up testing capacity in London we’ll be back to where we started: trying to halt the spread of the virus in the dark.

Nothing is more important than a fully functioning test, trace and isolate system if we are to prevent a devastating second wave, and time is fast running out.

Sadiq Khan.
Sadiq Khan. Photograph: David Parry/PA

Updated

Advocate general's resignation letter suggests he was not confident PM only viewed internal market bill as last resort

Downing Street has released the exchange of letters between Lord Keen of Elie and Boris Johnson’s following Keen’s resignation yesterday as advocate general for Scotland. In his letter Keen said that, although he had tried to find a justification for the provisions in the internal market bill that would allow the government to break international law (its obligations under the withdrawal agreement), it was now clear to him that this argument did not fit with Johnson’s “policy intentions”.

Lord Keen’s letter
Lord Keen’s letter Photograph: No 10

In the House of Lords on Tuesday Keen defended the internal market bill on the grounds that it did not by itself break international law but that it provided for “a contingent situation, one in which we find that the EU has materially breached its treaty obligations and in which we find that it may have acted in such a way as to fundamentally alter our obligations under the treaties.”

In other words, Keen was saying on Tuesday that the bill was a last resort, to be used only if the EU broke international law first. His resignation letter suggests he is no longer confident that that is an accurate summary of the PM’s thinking.

In his reply, Johnson ignored this issue completely.

PM’s letter to Keen
PM’s letter to Keen Photograph: No 10

List of 100 areas in England with highest number of new Covid cases per head

PA Media has published figures showing the rolling seven-day rate for new coronavirus cases for every local authority in England. Here are the top 100 local areas, rated according to where there are the highest number of new cases per head of population.

There are four figures for every local authority. They show: the rate of new cases in the seven days to 13 September, expressed as number of new cases per 100,000 people; (the total actual number of new cases in that period); the rate of new cases in the seven days to 6 September, expressed as number of new cases per 100,000 people; (and the actual number of new cases in that period).

According to PA Media, cities recording sharp increases in their seven-day rates include:

- Liverpool (up from 56.8 to 106.4, with 530 new cases)
- Leicester (up from 60.7 to 89.8, with 318 new cases)
- Salford (up from 75.3 to 89.6, with 232 new cases)
- Newcastle upon Tyne (up from 51.2 to 64.1, with 194 new cases)

Here is the list.

Bolton 204.1 (587), 152.0 (437)
Oadby and Wigston 136.8 (78), 52.6 (30)
Hyndburn 132.0 (107), 64.2 (52)
Preston 125.8 (180), 75.5 (108)
Burnley 124.8 (111), 70.9 (63)
Blackburn with Darwen 120.2 (180), 73.5 (110)
Oldham 114.7 (272), 66.6 (158)
Liverpool 106.4 (530), 56.8 (283)
Tameside 105.1 (238), 75.1 (170)
Warrington 104.8 (220), 57.6 (121)

Knowsley 102.7 (155), 51.0 (77)
St Helens 101.3 (183), 50.4 (91)
Rossendale 96.5 (69), 44.8 (32)
Bradford 93.6 (505), 82.8 (447)
South Tyneside 93.4 (141), 60.9 (92)
Wirral 91.7 (297), 66.0 (214)
Rochdale 90.8 (202), 68.8 (153)
Leicester 89.8 (318), 60.7 (215)
Salford 89.6 (232), 75.3 (195)
Bury 85.9 (164), 70.2 (134)


Birmingham 83.4 (952), 80.9 (924)
Sunderland 82.1 (228), 73.5 (204)
Gateshead 81.7 (165), 58.4 (118)
Manchester 79.9 (442), 68.7 (380)
Leeds 72.9 (578), 66.1 (524)
Halton 72.6 (94), 28.6 (37)
Pendle 71.7 (66), 58.6 (54)
Kirklees 70.7 (311), 42.7 (188)
Solihull 68.4 (148), 64.7 (140)
Newcastle upon Tyne 64.1 (194), 51.2 (155)


Blaby 63.0 (64), 53.2 (54)
Sandwell 62.4 (205), 41.7 (137)
Calderdale 58.6 (124), 45.4 (96)
Wolverhampton 55.4 (146), 41.4 (109)
Barrow-in-Furness 53.7 (36), 29.8 (20)
Sefton 52.5 (145), 37.3 (103)
Hartlepool 52.3 (49), 52.3 (49)
Rugby 51.4 (56), 28.5 (31)
Selby 49.7 (45), 47.5 (43)
Wyre 49.1 (55), 23.2 (26)


South Ribble 48.7 (54), 39.7 (44)
Sheffield 47.7 (279), 38.1 (223)
North Tyneside 46.7 (97), 37.5 (78)
Wigan 45.3 (149), 37.7 (124)
Stockport 45.0 (132), 32.7 (96)
Chorley 44.8 (53), 20.3 (24)
Spelthorne 44.1 (44), 31.0 (31)
Windsor and Maidenhead 43.6 (66), 20.5 (31)
High Peak 43.2 (40), 25.9 (24)
Trafford 43.0 (102), 32.9 (78)


Corby 41.5 (30), 47.1 (34)
Rotherham 41.4 (110), 30.1 (80)
St Albans 39.7 (59), 20.9 (31)
Charnwood 38.7 (72), 20.4 (38)
Craven 38.5 (22), 26.3 (15)
Redbridge 38.3 (117), 35.4 (108)
Northampton 38.3 (86), 33.4 (75)
Scarborough 37.7 (41), 39.5 (43)
County Durham 37.4 (198), 32.4 (172)
Bolsover 37.2 (30), 18.6 (15)


Fylde 37.1 (30), 17.3 (14)
Hounslow 36.8 (100), 30.2 (82)
Kettering 36.4 (37), 28.5 (29)
Middlesbrough 36.2 (51), 51.8 (73)
Walsall 36.1 (103), 25.2 (72)
Broxtowe 36.0 (41), 40.3 (46)
Mansfield 34.8 (38), 26.5 (29)
Stevenage 34.2 (30), 17.1 (15)
Coventry 33.4 (124), 27.5 (102)
Wakefield 33.0 (115), 25.3 (88)


Ashfield 32.8 (42), 28.9 (37)
Cannock Chase 32.8 (33), 12.9 (13)
Barking and Dagenham 32.4 (69), 30.1 (64)
Blackpool 32.3 (45), 22.9 (32)
Hambleton 31.7 (29), 10.9 (10)
Hertsmere 31.5 (33), 49.6 (52)
York 30.9 (65), 14.2 (30)
West Lancashire 30.6 (35), 38.5 (44)
Amber Valley 30.4 (39), 14.0 (18)
Stockton-on-Tees 30.4 (60), 24.3 (48)


Enfield 30.3 (101), 23.4 (78)
South Staffordshire 30.2 (34), 24.0 (27)
Wellingborough 30.1 (24), 18.8 (15)
Nottingham 30.0 (100), 31.8 (106)
Cheshire West and Chester 30.0 (103), 19.8 (68)
Castle Point 29.9 (27), 16.6 (15)
Harborough 29.8 (28), 20.3 (19)
Havering 29.7 (77), 33.5 (87)
North East Derbyshire 29.6 (30), 17.7 (18)
Welwyn Hatfield 29.3 (36), 18.7 (23)


Stoke-on-Trent 29.3 (75), 30.0 (77)
Harrogate 29.2 (47), 34.8 (56)
Ealing 29.0 (99), 20.8 (71)
Tamworth 28.7 (22), 20.9 (16)
Hammersmith and Fulham 28.6 (53), 28.6 (53)
Hackney and City of London 28.5 (83), 19.9 (58)
Bromsgrove 28.0 (28), 29.0 (29)
Runnymede 28.0 (25), 15.7 (14)
Malvern Hills 28.0 (22), 30.5 (24)
Luton 27.7 (59), 26.3 (56)

Updated

Minister confirms teachers will be among groups getting priority for testing under new guidance

During his interview on the Today programme this morning Edward Argar, the health minister, also confirmed that the government would shortly issue guidance on how it would prioritise access to testing. He said teachers would be among those getting priority.

We will see this in the next few days, the official guidance coming out that will prioritise frontline NHS care workers, teachers and similar.

It is possible that there are people with symptoms who apply for a test who have to wait longer because we are prioritising those key frontline workers we need to keep our NHS and care system working.

People queuing outside a test centre in Southend-on-seathis morning.
People queuing outside a test centre in Southend-on-sea
this morning. Photograph: John Sibley/Reuters

Care providers in England will receive more than £500m extra funding to help reduce transmission of Covid-19 during the winter, the government has announced. As PA Media reports, the infection control fund will help pay staff full wages when they are self-isolating and ensure carers work in only one care home, reducing the risk of spreading the infection. The fund was set up in May but has now been extended until March 2021 and will offer the sector an extra £546m ahead of an anticipated second wave of the virus over the winter months.

Dr Adam Kucharski, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the Today programme this morning that the shortage of coronavirus testing meant it was getting harder to track the spread of the disease. He explained:

I think we are getting to the point where potentially we are losing our ability to accurately track the virus. That means that we could have a situation where it is getting into risk groups, we start to see more cases appear and we don’t have good warning of that.

It also affects our ability to have more targeted, nuanced measures. If we lose the ability to track the virus it ends up that more blunt tools will be deployed. That is what we saw earlier in the year.

On the Today programme this morning the Newcastle city council leader, Nick Forbes, said his team had sent proposals to the Department of Health for pubs and restaurants to close at 10pm and for people to be banned from socialising outside their bubble. He explained:

We know from the tracing that we’re doing, that the three main areas where we’re seeing the spread of the virus at the moment are in pubs and bars, in people’s homes .... and in grassroots sports.

So in pubs and restaurants, we’ve asked for a 10pm curfew or 10pm closure of all pubs and restaurants.

And we’ve also asked for table service only to prevent people congregating and standing around bar areas. It’s much easier for people to maintain social distancing if it’s seating only.

We’ve asked for people to only have contact between households if they’re in a social bubble, and for people not to make contact with people outside of their own households or their own social bubble.

He said one exemption to this rule would be for extended family members who provide childcare.

Forbes said people needed to understand that “if we don’t get on top of this now, it’s going to get out of control”. Some 40,000 students were expected back in the city and there was now a need for extra testing capacity to keep them safe, he added. He went on:

I think we should all be deeply concerned about the rapid increase in the number of coronavirus cases we have seen over the last week in the north-east.

And not just the rapid rise in numbers, but also the fact that the average age of people being infected is going up as well.

Last week 60% of the people that were being tested were between the ages of 18 and 30.

That is now starting to reach into older age groups as well.

We know that when it starts to affect older people that’s when you start to get the hospitalisations and sadly also the mortality too.

That’s why we are acting now as a preventative measure to try to put off any further spread of the virus and ensure that we don’t end up here in the north-east in a more restrictive lockdown instead.

The Tyne Bridge in Newcastle.
The Tyne Bridge in Newcastle. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Updated

Minister dismisses claim PM preparing for new two-week national lockdown

Good morning. Later today Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is expected to announce details of new coronavirus restrictions being imposed in the north-east of England, but it could be much worse. Late last night Anthony Costello, a former director of the WHO, a former head of the Institute for Global Health at University College London and a regular commentator on coronavirus, sent a jolt of alarm through Twitter with this.

This morning his claim has been knocked down, by two good sources. This is what Edward Argar, the health minister, told Sky News when asked about the claim.

It is not something I have seen within the department. The prime minister has been very clear on this. He doesn’t want to see another national lockdown. He wants to see people abiding by the regulations and making the local lockdowns work.

Later, on the Today programme, Argar also said this was not something that he had heard from Whitty himself.

And Costello himself has retracted his claim. He posted this on Twitter about half an hour ago.

Of course, the truth or otherwise of this speculation may depend on how you define “national lockdown”. The Telegraph is reporting this morning that “office staff will be given a “work from home” order within a fortnight if the “rule of six” fails to bring down coronavirus infection rates”. It attributes the story to unnamed senior government sources.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The ONS publishes its regular update on the economic impact of coronavirus.

9.30am: Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, gives evidence to the Commons Scottish affairs committee on coronavirus.

Morning: NHS test and trace is due to publish its weekly performance indicators.

Around 11.30am: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, gives a statement to MPs on coronavirus. He is expected to announce details of new restrictions for parts of north-east England.

12pm: Downing Street is expected to hold its daily lobby briefing.

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

3.15pm: Dido Harding, head of NHS Test and Trace, gives evidence to the Commons science committee.

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

Here is our global coronavirus live blog.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Updated

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