Early evening summary
- Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, has said all four nations of the UK have passed the peak of cases, hospitalisation and deaths. (See 5.54pm.)
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Boris Johnson has effectively ruled out bringing forward general school reopening in England. He has already said schools will reopen from 8 March, but the Scottish government’s decision yesterday to reopen schools, mostly for some primary pupils, from 22 February, has prompted some calls for a rethink in England. But, speaking at a press conference in No 10 alongside Whitty, Johnson defended his plans. (See 5.28pm.) He went on:
What we don’t want to do, now that we are making progress with the vaccine rollout and we have got a timetable for the way ahead, we don’t want to be forced into reverse.
We think this is the prudent and cautious approach. I think it is much better to stick to that.
Scientists have also warned that bringing forward the reopening of schools in England would “a recipe for disaster” while prevalence of the virus remains high.
- Johnson has said the government will give more detail about the next phase of the vaccination programme after 15 February, which is the deadline for everyone in the top four priority groups to have been offered a first dose. And he said on Monday 22 February he would be setting out a routemap for easing lockdown, with dates and a timetable.
- Whitty said he thought giving every adult in the UK two doses of vaccine by the end of August was “probably beyond what is possible”. It has been reportedly that privately ministers do think this is possible. (See 11.45am.)
- Johnson said Matt Hancock, the health secretary, will announce more details of the hotel quarantine plan in the Commons tomorrow. (See 5.23pm.)
- The UK government has asked the EU to agree to a two-year extension of the full implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol. The request was set out in a letter released as Boris Johnson told MPs that he wanted to see “no barriers down the Irish Sea and the principle of unfettered access across all parts of our United Kingdom ... upheld”. In response to a question at PMQs from the DUP’s Ian Paisley, Johnson also restated his threat to invoke article 16 of the protocol - an emergency break that would allow the UK to dis-apply parts of it. Johnson said he would do everything he could to ensure trade flows freely, “whether legislatively or indeed by invoking article 16 of the protocol”.
That’s all from me for tonight. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.
Updated
Testing boosted in Birmingham after South African variant found not linked to travel
Birmingham city council said a small number of cases of the South African Covid variant have been found in areas of the city, PA Media reports. PA says:
The council said the cases in the Frankley Great Park ward and parts of south Northfield cannot be traced back to international travel.
People over the age of 18 living or working in Frankley Great Park ward and part of south Northfield between Frankley and the A38, since January 1 2021, have been strongly encouraged to take a test this week even if they are not showing symptoms.
Dr Justin Varney, director of public health for the council, said:
This new variant from South Africa presents a new risk so it is essential that all adults in the affected areas takes up this offer of testing to help us contain the spread quickly.
People who are essential workers and have to leave home to work at the moment should access testing as soon as possible to minimise the risk of spreading the virus in their workplace, but they can continue to attend work if it is unavoidable.
The majority of us should be working from home and only leaving home for the essential reasons set out in the current guidelines.
The national clap for Captain Tom and for NHS staff is about to start. There is a live feed here.
All four nations of UK have passed peak for cases, hospitalisations and deaths, says Whitty
At the news conference Prof Chris Whitty said he thought the UK was now past the peak for the second wave of the pandemic. In terms of cases that has been obvious for a while, but in terms of deaths, it is only in the last week or so that the trend has become clear. This is what Whitty said.
Most of my colleagues think we are past the peak. That doesn’t mean you can never have another peak. But at this point in time, provided people continue to follow the guidelines, we are on a downward slope of cases, of hospitalisations and of deaths, in all four of the nations in the United Kingdom. So we do think, at this point, this peak at least, we are passed.
Updated
Q: How many people are refusing to have the vaccine?
Johnson says he has been encouraged by how much support there is for the vaccine programme. He visited a centre in Batley, in Yorkshire, on Monday where 97% of the over-80s have been vaccinated.
Whitty says support for vaccines is remarkably high in the UK.
Q: How frustrating is it that people do still not realise how serious this is, like the person who harangued you?
Whitty says there is a small, noisy group who disagree with everything.
But the overwhelming majority of the population do understand how serious this is, he says.
And that’s it. The press conference is over.
Updated
Q: When will people start getting their second dose of vaccine?
Johnson says he expects more will be said about the vaccination programme in the week beginning 15 February.
And on 22 February he hopes to set out dates in some detail for the year ahead.
Whitty says there are two reasons why people don’t self-isolate. First, they don’t realise how important it is. And, second, there are financial incentives.
Q: You used to say you would open up bit by bit when you could. Now you want to do it all at once. Why did you change your mind?
Johnson says the situation is “pretty uniform” nationwide. He thinks it will be best to go down the tiers nationally. The government will set out more in week beginning 15 February. And on 22 February he will set out a timetable for lifting the restrictions, with as much detail as possible.
He says this time the government will be able to start easing the lockdown confident that the most vulnerable people will have had a high degree of protection.
Q: What did you feel about being harangued in public?
Whitty says it was a lad showing off. He was surprised it was picked up by the media. He says he is sure the person will become a model citizen in due course, like Captain Tom.
The odd young lad, showing off, occasionally happens.
I didn’t think anything of it frankly. I was very surprised it was picked up by the media at all as anything of any importance.
I’m sure he’ll become a model citizen in due course and hopefully more like Captain Tom, who is the kind of person who I think much more exemplifies the spirit of the UK.
Updated
Johnson says he would want to support a campaign for a statue for Captain Tom. He says the government will discuss with the family what would be appropriate.
Whitty says it is unrealistic to expect all adults to have had two doses by end of August
Q: Is it morally right that people have been vaccinated are still criminalised if they see other relatives who have been vaccinated? Some of these people cannot afford to wait to long.
Johnson says he understands the frustration. Steps are being taken to make care homes safe. But there are still far too may deaths in care homes, he says. He says it is now only weeks and months before everyone can be vaccinated.
Q: Is is possible, as some people in government claim, that all adults could have had a first dose by the end of May, and a second dose by the end of August?
Whitty says that sounds to him “probably beyond what is possible”.
Johnson plays down prospect of schools reopening in England before 8 March
Q: Could schools open before 8 March?
Johnson says that is a prudent date to set.
He says the government needs to make a judgement about the impact of the vaccines.
That will be made in the week beginning 15 February.
At the moment the data is not available.
After that, the government wants to wait three weeks for all people in the top four priority groups to acquire the immunity that builds up after the first dose.
That is why 8 March has emerged as a date, he says.
He says he understands why people want to move faster. But he does not want to be “forced into reverse”, so he is taking a “prudent and cautious approach”.
Q: Has the vaccine programme had any impact yet?
Whitty says if you do multiple analyses, you can convince yourself there has been some impact.
But he says he wants to see a significant reduction in death rates.
In the next two or three weeks, there will be reductions in mortality in those who have been vaccinated compared with those who have not.
Updated
Johnson says further details of hotel quarantine plan to be announced tomorrrow
Q: When will hotel quarantine start? And will you give more help to people who have to self-isolate? If not, aren’t there two huge holes in your policy?
Johnson says the UK has one of the toughest border regimes in the world. But he does not want to totally close the borders. Food and medicines must come in from abroad.
But the government has made it illegal to go on holiday, or to come here from some countries.
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, will make a further announcement about the hotel quarantine plans tomorrow, he says.
On self-isolation, Johnson says overwhelmingly people are isolating.
(Dido Harding told MPs this morning at least 20% of people who should be isolating weren’t. See 11.45am.)
Q: Is there scope for opening schools in England before 8 March?
Whitty says the date is a matter for ministers.
But there are two arguments - and both are true.
First, he says, there is clear evidence that being in school is good for children. Schools are safe for them. That is not disputed, he says. And school opening is good for parents.
He says they were holding the line before the new variant arrived.
But the new variant is more transmissible, and so schools had to close.
He says it is for ministers to judge when the balance of interests will favour opening schools.
Whitty says people who are vaccinated have no protection in the first two or three weeks after getting the vaccine. In older people it may be longer, he says.
And he says people should continue to obey social distancing rules after having their first dose.
He says vaccines will protect in three ways. They will protect the person vaccinated to a very real degree.
They will reduce the risk to people who interact with those vaccinated, although at this point they don’t know fully the impact on transmission, he says.
And he says vaccines also reduce the amount of virus circulating in the whole population. But we are “nowhere near” that, he says. The rate of virus in the community is “incredibly high”.
A substantial number of people have been vaccinated, Whitty says.
Whitty says his final slide shows deaths and hospital cases, by age.
He says once all people in the first four priority groups have been vaccinated - and they are due to have been offered a first dose by 15 February - most of those who die from Covid will have been covered. But there will still be a lot of people likely to end up in hospital.
Once all nine priority groups have been vaccinated, there will be much less pressure on hospitals, he says.
And deaths are “beginning to come down”, Whitty says.
Whitty next shows a slide showing hospital numbers starting to decline.
Prof Chris Whitty shows the first slide, showing cases falling.
Boris Johnson starts by saying when Captain Sir Tom Moore launched his fundraising campaign in his garden, he knew instinctively what institution he wanted to support: the NHS. And he was right.
He says it is thanks to the NHS that we have passed the milestone of getting 10 million people vaccinated with a first dose.
He says new research from Oxford shows how effective the AstraZeneca vaccine is after just one dose.
No vaccine is ever 100% perfect, but increasingly the evidence shows that the vaccines will cut deaths and serious illness.
He says deaths are still alarmingly high. People should still stay at home to protect it, he says.
And he urges people to clap for Captain Tom and for the NHS at 6pm.
Boris Johnson's press conference
Boris Johnson is about to hold a press conference at No 10. He will be with Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser.
Today’s coronavirus figures for Scotland are here. There have been 88 further deaths (down from 92 a week ago today) and 978 further cases (down from 1,330 a week ago today).
Of all the new tests carried out, only 5.1% were positive. This is the lowest positivity rate since late December, and very close to the 5% target often mentioned by Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, as the benchmark set by the WHO for countries that have got Covid under control.
And there are 1,871 coronavirus patients in hospital. That is the first time the figure has been below 1,900 since mid-January.
Starmer admits he was wrong to accuse PM of talking 'nonsense' about his past stance on EMA
Sir Keir Starmer has admitted that he was wrong to say Boris Johnson was talking “nonsense” when Johnson told MPs that Starmer had called for the UK to stay in the European Medicines Agency. (See 1.41pm.) A spokesman for Starmer said in a statement this afternoon:
On a number of occasions the prime minister has wrongly claimed that Labour wanted to join the EU’s vaccine programme. That is inaccurate and the claim has been found to be untrue.
This afternoon during prime minister’s questions, Keir misheard the prime minister and assumed he was making the same false accusation again.
Keir accepts that, on this occasion, the prime minister was referring to old comments about the European Medicines Agency and Keir admits he was wrong and made a mistake in his response.
It’s not Labour policy to join either the European Medicines Agency or the EU vaccine programme. We have never called for the UK to be in the EU vaccine programme. We remain committed to working with the government to ensure we can be the first in the world to roll out the vaccine.
At PMQs Johnson raised Starmer’s stance on the EMA as part of a claim that, under Labour, the UK’s vaccine rollout would have been worse. “If we had listened to [Stamer], we would still be at the starting blocks, because he wanted to stay in the European Medicines Agency,” Johnson said.
However, as this Channel 4 FactCheck article explains, even if the UK had remained in the EMA, it would still have been able to run its own vaccine programme independent of the EU’s. Starmer, and Labour HQ, never called for the UK to join the EU’s vaccine procurement scheme when it was launched last year, although one Labour frontbencher did post a tweet criticising the government’s decision to opt out of the EU scheme, as the FactCheck blog explains.
UK records 1,322 further deaths, and 19,202 more cases
The UK government has updated its coronavirus dashboard. Here are the key figures.
- The UK has recorded 1,322 further deaths. That is down from 1,449 yesterday, and down from 1,725 a week ago today. The total number of deaths over the last seven days is 13.4% down on the previous week; yesterday the week on week figure was down 9.7%, implying the rate of decline has hastened a bit. But, overall, the daily death toll remains remarkably high. Today’s total is still higher than any daily total for deaths recorded by this measure in the first wave of the pandemic.
- The UK has recorded 19,202 further cases. That is an increase from yesterday’s total (16,840), but the trend is still down. The number of cases in the last seven days is 25.1% down on the previous week.
- There were 2,651 patients admitted to hospital in the UK on Friday last week, the last day for which a figure is available on the dashboard. That is the lowest figure since 26 December, more than five weeks ago, when 2,526 patients were admitted. Week on week, admissions are down 22.2%.
- 374,756 people received their first dose of vaccine yesterday.
Updated
Photograph: Jessica Taylor/AP
Ministers have effectively been trying to blame the EU for the crisis with the Northern Ireland protocol, implying the decision to threaten to invoke article 16 to restrict vaccine supplies to Northern Ireland (a threat swiftly recognised as a mistake and withdrawn within hours) was to blame.
But Sir Jonathan Jones, who resigned last year from his post as head of the government’s legal department when No 10 proposed breaking international law by ignoring parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, says the problems are all inherent in the deal that the government signed in the first place.
Sure, the EU cocked up over Art 16. But that cock-up was never brought into effect. The concerns listed in the letter flow from the deal that the govt agreed to. Clearly right to try & resolve them, which will need agreement on both sides. But don’t blame the Art 16 debacle. https://t.co/FSSHB0gCa1
— Jonathan Jones (@SirJJQC) February 3, 2021
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesman refused to say what might led to Boris Johnson invoking article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol - the emergency opt-out that allows parts of it to be dis-applied. Johnson restated his willingness to use it at PMQs. (See 12.35pm.)
The spokesman said:
I would point back to what the prime minister just said in the house, that we will do everything that we need to do, whether legislatively or indeed by triggering article 16 of the protocol, to ensure that there is no barrier in the Irish Sea and that businesses can continue to do business unfettered between Northern Ireland and the rest of the county.
I would add that our focus is working closely with the EU and the parties in Northern Ireland to help address the problems that are set out in Michael Gove’s letter. [See 2.05pm.]
That’s the work we are taking forward today and we want to try and resolve these issues as soon as possible.
The spokesman also defended Johnson’s decision to visit the Valneva vaccine factory in Scotland last week, despite a Covid outbreak at the plant. At PMQs Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, criticised this. (See 2.25pm.) The spokesman said indicated that, although No 10 had been told in advance about the outbreak, Johnson was not personally informed. “Valneva had approved all aspects of the visit from a safety perspective and the site director is comfortable that no risks were taken,” the spokesman said.
Updated
A total of 9,126,930 Covid-19 vaccinations had taken place in England between December 8 and February 2, according to provisional NHS England data, including first and second doses, which is a rise of 301,559 on the previous day’s figures.
As PA Media reports, of this number, 8,663,041 were the first dose of the vaccine, a rise of 300,173 on the previous day’s figures, while 463,889 were the second dose, an increase of 1,386.
Updated
Leaked presentation stressing value of union flag 'not party strategy', says Labour
Labour has insisted that a document from an internal presentation, leaked to the Guardian, urging the party to “use of the [union] flag, veterans [and] dressing smartly” as part of a plan to win back disillusioned voters, does not represent official strategy.
Asked about the document at his regular post-PMQs briefing, a spokesman for Sir Keir Starmer said:
The first point to make clear is that it is not a Labour party document.
It was a document produced by an external agency about the Labour party - it was created by a third party and the recommendations in that report are their recommendations.
It is not right to say it was presented as our strategy. That is not what it was and to claim otherwise is wrong.
We will write our own strategy and that will be a strategy focused entirely on how do we restore trust and how do we win in 2024.
Asked to respond to a focus group remark mentioned in the report suggesting Starmer had been “sitting on the fence” on issues, the spokesman gave a list of examples where Labour had challenged the Government, such as on bringing in tighter border controls to block new variants of coronavirus from entering the country.
The spokesman also said that Boris Johnson was wrong to claim past comments from Starmer about the European Medicines Agency meant that a vaccine rollout would have been less successful under Labour. (See 1.41pm and 2.38pm.) The spokesman said:
To put it simply, do we want to be in the EMA? No. Have we been calling for us to be in EMA? No. And have we said we should be in the EU vaccine programme? No.
Asked about reports that Starmer had a “heated exchange” over this after PMQs, the spokesman said he had no knowledge of the incident.
Updated
Grant Shapps resists blanket border controls to stem Covid in Britain
An Australia-style closure of borders would not help the UK combat the Covid-19 crisis, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, told a Commons committee this morning. My colleague Simon Murphy has the story.
10m people have now had first dose of vaccine, says Hancock
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, says 10 million people in the UK have now had their first dose of vaccine.
10 MILLION people have now received their first dose of the COVID vaccine.
— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) February 3, 2021
This is a hugely significant milestone in our national effort against this virus.
Every jab makes us all a bit safer - I want to thank everyone playing their part pic.twitter.com/oGGG5I11o9
NHS England has recorded 707 further coronavirus hospital deaths. The details are here.
A week ago today the equivalent figure was 973.
Boris Johnson will hold a press conference at No 10 at 5pm, Downing Street has said. He will be joined by Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser.
Army called in to help North West Ambulance Service
The army has been drafted in to help the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) cope with a surge in 999 call-outs amid soaring staff shortages. NWAS confirmed that the military would be joining forces with clinicians to treat non-urgent patients.
These patients will be attended to by an NWAS clinician paired with a member of the military, allowing the ambulance service to make more efficient use of its emergency resources.
The announcement comes following concerns that patients were having to wait too long due to increased demand brought about by the pandemic. NWAS declared a major incident in November after what they called a “sudden surge” in 999 calls.
It is the first time the military has been called in to assist the region’s ambulance service, apart from during strike action. The army has been called in to assist other ambulance trusts during the pandemic, including South East Coast Ambulance Service which covers Kent.
Ged Blezard, director of operations at the NWAS, said:
Our activity has substantially risen in recent months and whenever this happens, it is the less urgent cases which see the longest waits.
This partnership with the military means we can have more of our vehicles on the road, getting people the treatment they need sooner. This in turn, frees up more resources to attend urgent, life-threatening cases. Each member of the military will pair up with an NWAS colleague and attend minor cases, hospital transfers and discharges only.
The Sun is claiming that Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer had a “heated exchange” outside the Commons chamber after PMQs, during which Starmer said that policy towards the European Medicines Agency had nothing to do with what a vaccination programme might have been like under Labour. Johnson implied otherwise at PMQs. (See 1.41pm.)
But, as Sky’s Sam Coates reports, Labour figures have said the exchange was not heated.
NEW: Chris Matheson MP, Lab MP present, said of allegations it was heated:
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) February 3, 2021
“It’s absolute bollocks. There was a brief chat and then Keir and I left together. Nothing more to it than that.”
Labour source: ”They had a perfectly reasonable conversation as they often do after PMQs.”
Updated
Gove tells EU 'grace period' exemptions in Northern Ireland protocol should last two years
Boris Johnson has accused the EU of appearing to “cast doubt” on the Good Friday agreement, with last week’s decision to invoke article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol, my colleagues Heather Stewart, Daniel Boffey and Lisa O’Carroll report.
In a related development Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has used a letter (pdf) to the European commission’s vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, to ask for some of the “grace period” exemptions from the Northern Ireland protocol rules to continue until 1 January 2023. That would mean exemptions that were only supposed to be in place for a few months lasting two years.
Gove also hints the government may go further if the protocol cannot be made to work for the people of Northern Ireland, reinforcing what Boris Johnson said in the Commons about the UK being willing to invoke article 16 of the protocol. Gove writes:
I must make clear that the UK government seeks urgent resolution of these problems in the context of our obligations to seek commonly acceptable solutions, and recognising the pressing need to restore confidence among people in Northern Ireland that the Belfast ‘Good Friday’ agreement is being respected in all its dimensions. If it is not possible to agree a way forward in the way we propose, then the UK will consider using all instruments at its disposal.
Updated
The Welsh government is proud of the progress of its vaccination programme. The Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, said the latest figures showed that more than 462,000 people in Wales had had the first dose of the vaccine. He said:
In the last week, we vaccinated more people as a percentage of our population than any of the other UK nations.
But this isn’t a race between countries in the UK. This is a race against the virus and it is one where we are making rapid progress.
Updated
Johnson and Starmer clash over whether UK vaccine effort would have been as good under Labour
Boris Johnson claimed Britain’s Covid-19 vaccine programme would still be at the “starting blocks” under Sir Keir Starmer, PA Media reports. PA goes on:
The prime minister said the Labour leader had repeatedly called for the UK to stay in the European Medicines Agency, and suggested such a move would have hampered the UK’s response to the pandemic.
But the Labour leader described the remarks as “complete nonsense” and suggested the “truth escapes” the prime minister.
Johnson pulled faces and puffed his cheeks in response to Starmer’s answer.
Comments from Starmer contained in Hansard, the official record of parliament, in January 2017 show him questioning why the UK would want to leave the body and that it should be something retained as part of the Brexit process.
Conservative former minister Mark Francois later raised a point of order in a bid to correct the record and highlight Starmer’s previous remarks.
Speaking at PMQs, Johnson said: “If we had listened to [Starmer], we would still be at the starting blocks because he wanted to stay in the European Medicines Agency and said so four times from that dispatch box.”
Starmer responded: “Complete nonsense. Don’t let the truth get in the way of a pre-prepared gag.
“The prime minister knows I’ve never said that, from this dispatch box or anywhere else, the truth escapes him.”
Updated
Scotland has recorded its highest yet daily total for vaccinations, Sturgeon says
Nicola Sturgeon has announced the highest daily total for vaccinations in Scotland since the programme began.
Challenged yet again on the speed of the Scottish government’s vaccine rollout at FMQs, the first minister repeated that it was right to concentrate first on care homes – which take longer because of the nature of the population – and insisted that the programme was now accelerating for younger age-groups.
Confirming that 38,484 people in Scotland were given their first dose of the vaccine yesterday, she said that the figure was 59% higher than last Tuesday, with over 90% of the over-80s already completed.
The Scottish government is committing to meeting its target of reaching all over-70s and the extremely clinical vulnerable by the middle of February. But the figure needs to be maintained seven days a week to meet that target. This is from the i’s Chris Green.
At #FMQs Nicola Sturgeon says 38,484 people in Scotland had first dose of Covid vaccine yesterday
— Chris Green (@ChrisGreenNews) February 3, 2021
This is a new record high - but nation needs to be jabbing 40,000+ per day (including weekends) to meet mid-Feb target
Asked by Scottish Conservative Holyrood leader, Ruth Davidson, about Scottish secretary Alister Jack’s offer of further military assistance to her government to accelerate the rollout – reiterated by Michael Gove this morning, Sturgeon said:
Any help the armed forces gave to Scotland, whether on vaccinations or PPE, is not a favour from the secretary of state for Scotland, it’s our armed forces that the people of Scotland pay for out of their taxes. So let’s forget the suggestion that it’s the UK government somehow doing Scotland a favour.
Just before FMQs, an independent expert review of Scotland’s care homes – prompted by major failures highlighted during the early days of the pandemic - has backed calls for a National Care Service, led by Scottish Labour, to improve standards.
Updated
Three cases of the South African Covid variant have been discovered in Wales that have not been linked to international travel.
The health minister, Vaughan Gething, said two of the cases were in north Wales, in Conwy and on the island of Anglesey, while the third was in Neath Port Talbot in the south.
There are 13 cases in all of the South African variant across Wales. Gething said:
Ten of these cases have clear links to either South Africa or to international travel. In the other three cases, there is currently no clear evidence of how they may have caught the virus.
Two of these cases are in north Wales – in Anglesey and in Conwy. They have the same genetic sequence and they were tested on the same day in the same laboratory. The third case is in Neath Port Talbot.
Gething said Public Health Wales was carrying out a “detailed and forensic investigation” into each of these cases to discover when and how each person became infected with the South African variant.
He said the fact that there were only three cases under investigation showed that there was no evidence of “sustained” community transmission. But Gething added that the government needed to understand how the three had come into contact with the South African variant.
Gething said “targeted” testing rather than whole community testing was taking place.
Updated
PMQs - Snap verdict
That was one of the most comfortable PMQs Boris Johnson has enjoyed for a while. He was defensive rather than impressive, but neither Sir Keir Starmer nor Ian Blackford really managed to unnerve him or out-argue him very decisively, and - unusually - the most interesting parts of the PMQs exchanges came entirely elsewhere, on the subject of Northern Ireland.
Starmer devoted his first three questions to quarantine rules, and his second three to Grenfell and the ongoing problems with cladding. On quarantine, he was again pushing for even tougher measures than those proposed by the government. Labour’s line on this is popular, according to opinion polling, although perhaps not wholly pragmatic, as Johnson argued when he deflected a Starmer question by the simple matter of actually answering it.
Starmer wanted to know whether the PM was ignoring what Sage may (or may not) be saying about the advantages of fully closing the borders because he did not agree, or because it was impractical. The latter, Johnson effectively told him. “It is not practical completely to close off this country as he seems to be suggesting,” he said. “What is practical to do is have one of the toughest regimes in the world and to get on with vaccinating the people of this country.”
Starmer was much better in the second half, on cladding, where he highlighted an issue raised by Labour in its opposition day debate on Monday and successfully reverted to the old Jeremy Corbyn tactic of quoting from people with real-life experience. Johnson’s replies - effectively, ministers are on the case and will announce something soon - were shallow, waffly and a bit useless. But Starmer did not have a killer come-back at any point, and he did not interrogate Johnson’s claim that leaseholders would not be left having to pay “the unaffordable costs of fixing safety defects” - which sounds like a mammoth loophole.
Blackford was a lot more punchy, and he showed (not for the first time) that he can craft a pithy attack line much better than Starmer can. He told the PM:
The prime minister put politics before public health. Prime minister, why be so reckless? Is it any wonder that people in Scotland have no faith in this prime minister? Isn’t he the worst possible leader at the worst possible time?
(Why doesn’t Starmer do the same? Do read Andrew Rawnsley’s Observer column from Sunday for an answer. He writes: “One Labour frontbencher tells me: ‘In our focus groups, the more we attack the government, the more people don’t like it.’”)
There were repeated questions from other MPs on Northern Ireland and, not for the first time, Johnson threatened to invoke article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol to effectively disapply the agreement if it continues to disadvantage the region. That would be tantamount to abandoning a deal his own government negotiated. He also repeatedly stressed his belief that trade could continue “unfettered” between Britain and Northern Ireland under this deal - even though it cannot. It is not clear yet where this row will end up, but anyone who thought the government’s Brexit difficulties were over is wrong.
Updated
Stephen Timms (Lab) asks if the online harms bill will tackle fraud. He says 40,000 people have been scammed out of their pensions over the last five years.
Johnson says he will look at this proposal.
And that’s it. PMQs is over.
Stephen McPartland (Con) says millions of leaseholders are living in fear because of cladding, and because of the costs they face. Will the PM ensure they do not have to pay to tackle the problem?
Johnson says he is clear that leaseholders should not have to worry about this.
Updated
Angela Crawley (SNP) asks why the government is not imposing tougher hotel quarantine rules, as the Scottish government is.
Johnson says he will not take any lectures on the vaccination rollout from the SNP.
Tracey Crouch (Con) asks about post-traumatic stress disorder in the NHS.
Johnson says the government is looking at this. Staff will get all the advice and helplines they need, he says.
Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru) asks when postal workers can get the vaccine.
Johnson says over-50s are being vaccinated first, but after that key workers will be prioritised.
Mark Jenkinson (Con) asks the PM to visit Workington when he can.
Johnson says he hopes to be there as soon as possible.
Rosie Cooper (Lab) asks about Skelmersdale. She says when it floods, they get cut off, because there are so many underpasses. Will the government come up with a solution that does not involve canoes?
Johnson says the funds are available, and the government will address this.
David Davis (Con) says in Spain death rates from Covid halved after vitamin D was distributed. Will the government consider using it here.
Johnson says the government is reviewing this.
Johnson says UK willing to invoke article 16 of Northern Ireland protocol if necessary
Ian Paisley (DUP) says the PM says his commitment to Northern Ireland is unshakeable. But the protocol has “betrayed” his constituents, he says. He says the EU will do nothing to help Northern Ireland. Will the PM use his parliamentary majority and legislation to sort this out? And will he be true to his word, so business people in Northern Ireland can “bin” unnecessary paperwork.
Johnson says he agrees with Paisley about the EU being wrong to propose a trade border. He says if necessary the UK will invoke article 16 so that unfettered trade can continue in the UK.
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Joy Morrissey (Con) asks if the government will prioritise children, and looking after their mental health.
Johnson says it is children’s mental health week this week. He says the government will be working on mental health resilience.
Asked why care workers are not paid more, Johnson says the government is proud of increases to the national living wage.
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Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Lab) says it is wrong that the government makes a 60% profit from the £1,000 charge for citizenship.
Johnson says he will look into this. But he says there are costs to the taxpayer. Citizenship is a considerable prize, and worth investing in, he says.
Laurence Robertson (Con) asks about the damage done by sewage water during flooding. He asks for assurances that new developments will not go ahead if the local sewerage capacity might be compromised.
Johnson says he will look at this idea.
Stephen Farry (Alliance) asks if the PM will seek a UK-EU veterinary agreement. That would help with the Northern Ireland protocol, he says.
Johnson says he does not want barriers of any kind down the Irish Sea, or on the island of Ireland.
Johnson says remedying the damage to children’s education is his single biggest priority.
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says last week the SNP said it would be wrong for Boris Johnson to visit Scotland. Today the Daily Record says he visited a vaccine plant despite a recent Covid outbreak there.
Johnson says he can think of few things more important than going to visit a Covid plant.
Blackford says Johnson was “utterly, utterly reckless”. He put politics before public health, he says. It is no wonder people in Scotland have no faith in him, he says. He is “the worst possible leader at the worst possible time”.
Johnson again defends his visit. He praises the Valneva vaccine. And he says no one raised concerns about the Covid outbreak with him before he went. He says he will visit every part of the UK. And the UK government is offering Scotland help to improve its vaccine rollout, he says.
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Starmer mentions a 27-year-old who has gone bankrupt. He says the government proposals will not help. And the Conservatives did not vote when Labour held a debate on this. Will the government support the demands of campaigners, who want upfront funding for this work, and a deadline for it to be completed by next year.
Johnson says the government is paying for alarms, and it wants the mortgage industry to help.
Going back to Covid, he says Labour wanted the UK to be part of the EU’s vaccine programme, which would have been a mistake.
He goes on to mention the report in today’s Guardian saying people think Starmer is guilty of sitting on the fence on matters, but at this point the Speaker cuts him off.
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Starmer says government policy is not working. People are in unsafe homes, and cannot sell them. He quotes a doctor, who is fighting Covid, worried about a £50,000 bill to fix his property. Will he have to pay it?
Johnson says no one should have to pay unaffordable costs through no fault of their own. He says he hopes the case mentioned by Starmer will be addressed by the measures being introduced.
Starmer asks why, three and a half years after Grenfell, hundreds of thousands of people are living in homes with unsafe cladding, and millions of leaseholders cannot sell their homes.
Johnson says the government is working to clear the backlog. The chancellor will come forward with a full package to address this.
Starmer asks why Johnson thinks the virus will only arrive by direct flights. That is not what happened before, he says.
Johnson claims Starmer is trying to have it both ways. He wants the borders open for freight, but also quarantine measures the government is introducing.
Boris Johnson defends quarantine policy, saying it's not practical to completely shut borders
Starmer says Johnson should publish the Sage minutes.
He asks if Johnson is arguing that a complete closure of borders would not make a difference, or if he is saying it is too difficult.
Johnson says it is “not practical” to completely close off this country. He says we rely on imports of food and medicine. But the government does have one of the toughest regimes in the world.
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Sir Keir Starmer welcomes the clap for Captain Tom.
He quotes what Sage said in minutes reported yesterday about how only a complete travel ban could stop the importation of new variants.
Johnson says Sage did not propose a complete travel ban. But people arriving from countries like South Africa will have to go into quarantine.
He says people arriving from these countries will also have to go into government-mandated accommodation.
Theresa May, the former Conservative PM, asks Johnson to back her private member’s bill to increase the maximum penalty for causing death by reckless driving.
Johnson says the government is introducing its own legislation in this area. It will go further than May’s measure for people causing death by reckless driving under the influence of drugs or drink.
Johnson says it was “most regrettable” that the EU seemed to case doubt on the Good Friday agreement last week by proposing a border in Ireland. He says the government does not want a barrier down the Irish Sea either. The principle of unfettered access for trade in the UK will be upheld.
Johnson calls for national clap for Captain Tom and health workers at 6pm tonight
Boris Johnson starts by paying his own tribute to “Captain Tom” as he calls him. He praises him for his optimism, and his declaration that tomorrow will be a good day. He encourages everyone to join a national clap for Moore, and for health workers, at 6pm this evening.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, starts by inviting MPs to share a minute’s silence in honour of Captain Sir Tom Moore.
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#PoliticsLive on #pmqs in a few mins - will start with a minute’s silence out of respect to Captain Sir Tom and other victims of Coronavirus
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) February 3, 2021
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, has criticised Dido Harding for saying that no one could predict that a new variant of the virus would emerge. (See 10.45am.) He says the report from the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges flagged up this possibility in a report published in the summer about planning for the next Covid spike. Ashworth said:
Confirmation that 20,000 people a day sick with Covid are not isolating confirms our repeated warnings that without decent sick pay and support we won’t break chains of transmission.
With worrying identification of the South African variant in the community and the E484K mutation in the infectious Kent variant it’s now more urgent than ever that this hole in our defences is fixed.
My colleague Peter Beaumont, who lives in, N17, one of the London postcodes under an enhanced surge testing regime for the new South African variant of Covid-19, says there is considerable confusion over what the new rules are supposed to be and even who is subject to the new testing regime. He has sent me this:
While health secretary Matt Hancock has suggested those living in the designated postcodes should consider not going out to buy food and rely what they have in the house (see 9.46am), Haringey council’s advice is far less dramatic.
The council says: “There is no immediate increased public health risk in the area in which the South African variant of the virus has been found, and we do not yet have any evidence of further local spread.
“The South African variant is thought to have similar infectiousness and severity to the UK variant that is the main Covid variant in circulation.
“There is currently no suggestion that the vaccines will not work against the South African variant, although it may reduce its effectiveness. This is still being looked into ...
“The reason for the mass testing in the N17 area is for Public Health England to determine how far – if at all – the South African variant has spread in the locality. This will help us stop it from spreading more widely.”
Also confusing local residents is the fact that some households that have received leaflets through their doors advising them that they are in an enhanced testing area, appear to be outside the surge area when checked on the Haringey postcode checker.
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At least 20,000 people per day not self-isolating when they should, MPs told
In further evidence to the Commons science committee Dido Harding, head of NHS Test and Trace, said that at least 20,000 people a day were not self isolating.
In exchanges with Jeremy Hunt, the chair of the Commons health committee (but who gets invited to contribute to science committee hearings on Covid), Harding said there were different estimates of the number of people not fully complying with instructions to self-isolate, ranging from 20% to around 40%.
Assuming that 20% of people were not self-isolating, she said that would equate to around 20,000 people per day. That was based on there being around 700,000 cases or contacts being told to self-isolate every week, or around 100,000 per day.
But she also said that her “biggest concern” was not the 20% of people not self-isolating when told to, but the people who were feeling ill but who were not coming forward for testing in the first place.
Baroness Harding confirms reluctantly there are thousands of potentially infectious people not isolating every day who should pic.twitter.com/ibtFii6hS9
— Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) February 3, 2021
From the Times’s Steven Swinford
Every adult will have had two doses of coronavirus vaccine by the end of August, senior govt sources believe
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) February 3, 2021
You won’t hear ministers saying it publicly though - they’re acutely aware of the risk of over promising and under delivering given past events
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Domestic abuse offences in England and Wales up 10% in year to September 2020, ONS says
Domestic abuse rose by 10% in a year, although overall crime was down during the Covid pandemic, PA Media reports. PA goes on:
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 842,813 domestic abuse-related offences were recorded by police forces in England and Wales in the year ending September 2020 - up from 769,691 the previous year.
Total police recorded crime dropped by 6% to around 5.7m offences, driven by substantial falls during April to June, particularly in theft offences, as the country spent most of the period under strict lockdown restrictions, a report published this morning said.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, told the Commons transport committee that the disruption feared at the Dover-Calais border when the new post-Brexit customs arrangements came into force at the start of 2021 has not materialised. He said:
The latest information is nearly 6,000 trucks a day [moving in each direction between Dover and Calais], which is probably now about 1,000 under where you might expect it to be at this time of year.
It’s somewhat difficult to be definitive in terms of what we’d expect, simply for the fact that there was a lot of stockpiling going on because there was a lot of concern about disruption, which hasn’t materialised.
Londoners are more likely to have coronavirus antibodies than people in other parts of the UK, according to new data released by the Office for National Statistics.
One in five people in the capital are estimated to have coronavirus antibodies in the four weeks up to 18 January, suggesting they have had the virus.
More than 18% of people in the West midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber and north-west are also estimated to have had antibodies to the virus in the same period.
There is wide regional variation in the prevalence of antibodies in the population. While England shows the highest rate of likely infection, with an estimated one in seven people having antibodies, this falls to one in 11 in Northern Ireland, one in 10 in Scotland and one in nine in Wales.
The analysis is based on an estimate of the proportion of people who would have tested positive for antibodies against Covid-19 in the 28 days up to 18 January, suggesting they have had the virus in the past. The estimates are based on testing a sample of the community population, excluding those in care homes and institutional settings.
Analysis also suggests that in England and Scotland those over 80 were more likely to test positive for antibodies. However, as this is the target group for vaccinations, it’s unclear if the high level of antibodies in this group is due to infection or vaccination.
In Wales people who were likely to have had the virus were younger, aged 16 to 24, and in Northern Ireland people aged 25 to 69 were most likely to have had the virus.
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Coffey criticises Treasury proposal for replacing £20-per-week UC rise with one-off lump sum
It has been a busy morning for select committees. Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, has also been giving evidence this morning, and she used her appearance at the work and pensions committee to shoot down what is reportedly the Treasury’s favoured plan for a replacement to the £20-per-week universal credit uplift.
Here are two lines from her evidence so far.
- Coffey said she was not in favour of replacing the uplift when it ends in March with a one-off payment. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has reportedly proposed giving claimants a one-off payment of up to £1,000. Although hugely expensive, this would prevent the £6bn annual cost of the £20-per-week uplift becoming a permanent addition to the welfare budget. But, as the Daily Mirror reports, Coffey told the committee a lump sum payment was not her “preferred approach”. She also said it was better for claimants to get a “steady sum of money”. This is from the Sky’s Tom Rayner.
Coffey appears to slap down idea of replacing UC uplift with one off payments to benefit recipients (an idea reported to be favoured by the Chancellor):
— Tom Rayner (@RaynerSkyNews) February 3, 2021
“a steady sum of money would probably be more beneficial to claimants and customers to help with that budgeting process”
- She claimed not to be aware of extra costs incurred by disabled people during the pandemic - even though these have been highlighted by campaigners. Tom Rayner has more details.
Coffey says she’s “not aware of extra costs that would have been unduly incurred” during the pandemic by disabled people on ESA & job seeker’s allowance who’ve not received an uplift.
— Tom Rayner (@RaynerSkyNews) February 3, 2021
Today’s report by Disability Benefits Consortium sets out those costs: https://t.co/TZSjPfSmfW pic.twitter.com/87LEExUNIc
Test and trace chief Dido Harding says no one could predict new variant would emerge
Dido Harding, head of NHS test and trace, is giving evidence to the Commons science committee. Here are some of the main lines from her evidence so far.
- Harding claimed that no one was able to predict that a new variant of the virus would emerge. She made the claim as she was defending the overall record of test and trace, in response to criticism from Greg Clark, the committee chair, who suggested that it had failed to stop England going back into a lockdown. Harding said:
It’s entirely understandable that everyone wants there to be a single, clear and straightforward route out of the Covid crisis. I think it’s very tempting to view ... that test and trace stands single-handedly to prevent the virus spreading, and lockdowns coming.
But actually we are part of an overall system ... Test and trace is only one of the elements that enables us to fight Covid. We are not the single silver bullet.
Between that business plan being published and us going into the lockdown that we are in now, we’ve seen the virus mutate. We have seen the new variant emerge, which was something that none of us were able to predict.
This line has not impressed journalists. These are from Sky’s Aubrey Allegretti and the Daily Mirror’s Pippa Crerar.
"None of us were able to predict" coronavirus would mutate or variants would emerge - Dido Harding, head of the National Institute for Health Protection
— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) February 3, 2021
Woth saying that Harding has used a similar excuse before when she was under-fire for testing capacity battling to reach demand levels in early autumn
— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) February 3, 2021
https://t.co/QaqT7ezzJA
Dido Harding says "none of us were able to predict" that the virus would mutate or that new variants would emerge.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) February 3, 2021
Err... https://t.co/8Nd1su7q2k
- Harding suggested it was more important for people to get a test result the following day than within 24 hours.
Dido Harding suggests "key thing" people want fr Test & Trace is results back the next day - rather than w/in exact 24 hour target - thus their figures.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) February 3, 2021
Science committee chair Greg Clark disagrees, saying exact info is "crucial" for decisions that will be made on lockdown.
- She said the emergence of the new variant had significant implications for the fight against the virus. She also said the Kent variant now accounted from more than 70% of cases in England. She said:
The new variant, which is now endemic and accounts for, I think, more than 70% of cases across the country, I think has broad implications, not just for NHS test and trace, but for the whole country, the whole world’s fight against Covid.
It means that we all have to keep our distance more rigorously, more hand washing, more face-mask wearing.
It also means that speeding up our end-to-end test and trace journey becomes more imperative.
Also, as I think I said earlier, finding more of the positive cases.
In Scotland the new variant now accounts for 73% of all cases.
- She said the system was on track to reduce R, the reproduction number, in high prevalence areas by between 0.6 and 0.8 by the end of March.
- She said test and trace gave up making repeated calls to different members of the same household because people found that annoying. Now it relies on household members to tell each other of the need to self-isolate, a change that has also improved its success rate for reaching contacts considerably. She said:
What became clear as contact tracing scaled through the autumn was that that was really annoying families with having multiple phone calls into the same household, particularly as then you’d extended to the isolation support calls that we also make to people who are isolating.
There was a lot of evidence that we gathered from our local authority colleagues and directly through our contact tracing teams that this was acting as a counterproductive element of our journey that was putting people off following the guidance.
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Swinney says Scotland already using army with vaccine rollout after UK offers further help
Michael Gove says the UK government is offering help with the vaccine rollout to all nations, after the Scottish secretary, Alister Jack, wrote to Nicola Sturgeon offering further military assistance to her government to accelerate the vaccine roll-out.
Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “We’re doing everything we can to help.”
Later on the same programme, Scotland’s deputy first minister John Swinney said that the Scottish government was using the army “very effectively” to help vaccine delivery, neither accepting nor rejecting the offer of further military assistance but saying it was “not a new idea”.
The Scottish government has repeatedly said its vaccination rates have been lower than England partly because it is prioritising care homes, where the process takes longer. But yesterday Nicola Sturgeon admitted during her regular coronavirus briefing she was concerned that Sunday’s total vaccinations figure was very low, at 9,628, and had asked her officials to establish why it had plunged.
In Wales, a country with 2 million fewer people, the figure was 12,898 and in England, nearly 290,000. Alister Jack speculated on Sunday the Scottish government had access to about 1.15m doses yet Monday’s Scottish data showed nearly 560,000 people have had their first dose.
Gove said “a significantly higher proportion of people” in England had been vaccinated than in Scotland. He said that “every care home resident in England has been offered the vaccine” but wouldn’t be drawn on how many had actually received it.
Asked about reports this morning that the prime minister visited the Valneva factory in Livingston despite a coronavirus outbreak ahead of the trip, he denied this was reckless. “The trip was entirely Covid-secure and safe,” he said. Gove went on:
It was an essential visit because the prime as prime minister of the UK wants to make sure that we learn from different aspects of the vaccine rollout. There was absolutely no risk to anyone as a consequence of it.
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Hancock says current vaccines 'unlikely' to be as effective against South African strain
Here are some more lines from the various interviews that Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has been giving this morning.
- Hancock admitted that the current vaccines were unlikely to be as effective against the South African variant of coronavirus as they are against existing strain. Asked if the jabs would work against the South African strain, he told LBC:
We don’t yet know the full answer to that question, that’s one of the reasons that we’re taking this precautionary approach, but we do think that it will have some effect, but unlikely to be as much of an effect as on the existing strains.
Yesterday it emerged that Kent variant of coronavirus, which is now dominant in the UK, may be developing a mutation (E484K) that is also present in the South African variant and which is credited with making it more resistant to antibodies.
- Hancock said that people living in areas where testing has been intensified to reduce the spread of the South African variant should consider not going to the shops if they have food in the house. He said:
If you are in one of those postcodes, it is absolutely imperative that you minimise all social contact outside of your house.
So this means, for instance, whereas the government guidance to most of us is: do go to the shops if you need to, in those areas, in the immediate term, we are saying: if you have food in the house, please use that.’
- He described as “pathetic” the man filmed abusing Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, in the street. Asked about the footage, Hancock said:
I think the individual concerned is pathetic, I think it is ridiculous what he is doing.
Chris Whitty is one of our greatest living scientists and his advice to the government all the way through this, and his advice to all of us in the population, has been incredibly smart and thoughtful, and he is a great asset to this nation.
The idea that someone would do something as silly as that is ridiculous.
- Hancock said the government had piloted giving vaccines through the night, but that it had concluded there was little demand for a 24-hour services. He said:
Some hospitals did do 24-hour jabbing and they did that in order to ensure their night shifts got the protection. But we have discovered, perhaps to nobody’s surprise, that people tend to want to have the jab during the day, and those who are doing the vaccinations prefer to do it during the day, so, since what you need to do is you need a vaccinator and the vaccine and the person being vaccinated, getting those three together during the day is more convenient than overnight.
So we have done 24-hour vaccinations. The rate-limiting factor is not the ability for the NHS to get this delivered, the rate-limiting factor is supply.
- He admitted that the film Contagion had influenced his thinking about the pandemic. Asked about reports saying it had had an impact on him, he said:
I think the safest thing to say is [the film] wasn’t my only source of advice on this issue but I did watch the film - it is actually based on the advice of very serious epidemiologists.
The insight that was so necessary at the start was that the big pressure on vaccines internationally would not be before they were approved - of course, there was a huge amount of work then - but it was after they are approved.
So, one of the things I did early was insist that when we had the Oxford vaccine, and we backed it from the start and that was great, I insisted that UK production protects people in the UK in the first instance. And, as the UK health secretary, that is my duty.
- He suggested he would like to see a memorial to Captain Sir Tom Moore. He said:
I think we should find a way to make sure we mark the memory of Captain Tom and thank him for the contribution he made for the NHS. I will ensure we mark his contribution properly and appropriately at the right moment.
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Hancock hints England may go further on hotel quarantine plans for arrivals
Good morning. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, was the No 10 choice for the morning broadcast round this morning and he hinted that the government may yet go further with its plans for hotel quarantine for new arrivals. Last week the UK government said it would make hotel quarantine compulsory for people arriving from high-risk countries, yesterday Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland would apply a “much more comprehensive” scheme, but we have not had full details of either scheme and the new rules are not yet in force in England or Scotland.
In an interview with Sky News, Hancock defended the UK government’s current regime. He said the government was still working on the hotel quarantine plans and that there was already “mandatory isolation” for all people arriving in the UK (although at home, not in hotels). But he did not rule out going further. “We’re always looking to strengthen these things but we already have very stringent measures in place at the border,” he said.
I will post more from his interviews shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Dido Harding, head of NHS test and trace, gives evidence to the Commons science committee.
9.30am: Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, gives evidence to the Commons work and pensions committee about the response to Covid.
9.30am: Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, gives evidence to the Commons transport committee.
9.30am: The ONS publishes antibody data from its Covid infection survey.
12pm: Boris Johnson faces Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs.
12.15pm: The Welsh government is expected to hold a coronavirus briefing.
12.30pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, takes questions in the Scottish parliament.
12.30pm: Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, responds to a Commons urgent question about support for students during the pandemic.
1.30pm: Downing Street is expected to hold its lobby briefing.
5pm: Downing Street is expected to hold a press conference.
Also today Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, is holding a virtual meeting with his European commission opposite number, Maroš Šefčovič, about the Northern Ireland protocol. And Arlene Foster, the Northern Ireland first minister, is due to hold a meeting with Boris Johnson on the same topic. My colleague Lisa O’Carroll has a preview here.
Politics Live is now doubling up as the UK coronavirus live blog and, given the way the Covid crisis eclipses everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we will be covering non-Covid political stories too, and when they seem more important or more 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.
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