That’s it from the UK blog team. You can continue to follow our global coronavirus coverage here -
The Treasury is considering a partial climbdown over plans to end the boost to universal credit amid pressure from the work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, and a slew of Tory MPs bruised by the school meals row.
Speaking on Monday, Boris Johnson himself hinted at a rethink over the £20-a-week uplift, which is due to end in April, saying the government wanted to ensure “people don’t suffer as a result of the economic consequences of the pandemic”.
Following the vote, shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said: “It is disappointing that the Conservative government refused to vote with Labour to provide families with certainty and secure our economy.
They can still do the right thing and drop their plans to cut universal credit. Britain is facing the worst recession of any major economy because of the Government’s incompetence and indecision. Families cannot be made to pay the price.
Updated
Labour's universal credit motion approved by MPs
Labour’s motion pressing the government to maintain a £20 weekly universal credit rise in April and beyond was approved by 278 votes to zero, majority 278.
The prime minister, Boris Johnson, had ordered Conservative MPs to abstain on the non-binding motion.
Updated
The universal credit debate is currently taking place in the Commons.
The vote is expected to be around 7.15pm on the Labour motion of keeping the uplift.
Updated
Dido Harding, the head of the NHS’s much-criticised test and trace system, has defended paying at least 900 management consultants a daily rate of around £1,000 a day.
The Conservative peer told the Commons’ public accounts committee she felt it was “appropriate” to bring in external help in “extreme emergency circumstances” such as that faced by the country during the coronavirus crisis.
“I think it is appropriate to build a service in extreme emergency circumstances using short-term contingent labour and consultants for some of those roles.
“I think they’ve done very important work alongside the public servants, the military, the healthcare professionals and members of the private sector who have come and joined us as well,” she said.
Her comments came after David Williams, the second permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care said there were 900 Deloitte consultants working on test and trace.
“The average cost across our consultancy support, I imagine is about the same for Deloitte, is around £1,000 a day,” he said.
Asked if he was confident that there were no “super-profits” being made out of test and trace, Williams said he was “as confident as I can be”. “In terms of profiteering, as it were... I see no evidence that causes me concern on that,” he said.
Updated
Early evening summary
- Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has told a No 10 press conference that more than 4 million people in the UK have now had at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. The figures are on the government’s dashboard, which also shows that new UK cases (37,535 today) continue to fall week-on-week, but deaths (599 today) continue to rise. Hancock said that UK Covid hospital numbers, at 37,475, are at an all-time high. But the latest figures also show UK hospital admissions up just 7% on the previous week. Yesterday the week-on-week increase was 14%.
- MPs seem certain to vote later tonight for a motion telling the government to abandon the cut in universal credit planned for April to “give certainty” for the families for whom it is worth £1,000 a year. The government tabled an amendment, but that will not be put to a vote because Conservative MPs have been told to abstain, meaning the Labour motion should pass by a three-figure majority. (See 4.55pm.) Opposition day motions like this are not binding on the government, and Theresa May’s government ignored them, but at the start of the debate Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said that all majority governments in the past had accepted that, if they could not win a vote on policy in the Commons, they should change the policy. Responding for the government, Will Quince, a welfare minister, said that although he had “some sympathy” with the argument that claimants needed certainty, the government was not ready to make a commitment now. He said:
If [Reynolds] is certain about what the economic and social picture will look like in April, well, to be frank, he must have a crystal ball. The reality is we simply do not know what the landscape will look like and that is why it’s right that we wait for more clarity on the national economic and social picture before assessing the best way to support low-income families moving forward.
The £20-per-week uplift in universal credit was only supposed to be temporary when the Treasury announced it as a measure to help families through the pandemic. Making it permanent would cost around £6bn a year. The government has said it will announce some form of replacement in the budget in March. MPs are due to vote at 7.15pm and, with many Tories said to be sympathetic to the Labour argument for the need for the uplift to continue, it is thought a handful may vote with the opposition.
That is all from me for tonight. But a colleague will top up the blog later with the result from the vote.
Our Covid coverage continues on our global coroanvirus live blog. It’s here.
Updated
Nurseries and other early years providers who close or seek to limit numbers to protect staff and children and stem the spread of Covid are likely to lose vital funding, according to Green MP Caroline Lucas.
She has criticised government plans to press ahead with a census this week, in the midst of national lockdown, to count the number of children in attendance in early years which will determine free-places funding.
The Department for Education issued new guidance last week which said that children who are registered but temporarily absent for the census because of Covid reasons including illness and self-isolating can still be counted.
Critics, however, highlighted a change in the guidance, which means that where early years providers and nurseries decide to limit numbers for safety reasons, for example just to children of key workers or vulnerable pupils in line with wider schools policy, they could lose funding. Others will lose out because of a drop in demand.
Caroline Lucas, the MP for Brighton Pavilion, said:
Ministers are wilfully putting councils in an impossible situation: if nursery providers remain closed, collectively they stand to lose millions of pounds; if they’re forced to open, they put staff and children at risk.
To hold nursery providers and young children to ransom in this way is despicable and - following the free school meals debacle - marks a new low in the government’s cruel and callous treatment of our young people.
Updated
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, called for the capital to get a “fair share” of the covid vaccines after regional figures released earlier today showed that London had the lowest number of people vaccinated of all English regions at 417,225.
The mayor had a crisis meeting with Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, last Thursday given the high number of cases in the capital. City Hall sources said the mayor was promised that distribution issues would be fixed by the end of this week.
Leading regions such as the Midlands, and the north-east and Yorkshire, had provided a first dose of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca jabs to 746,687 and 681,317 people respectively.
The mayor also raised concern that this could disproportionately affect BAME communities, who may be more hesitant about receiving the vaccine.
“I have been calling for a fair share of vaccine supply in London,” Khan said, arguing that following his meeting with the minister, the government was now listening. He went on:
The supply of vaccines and the number of places across London where people can get a jab will both now increase. Towards the end of the week, I fully expect to see an increase in the number of vaccinations in London.
Updated
Q: Will you change the law to protect doctors from being prosecuted for unlawful killing because the pressure on resources means they cannot look after patients properly?
Hancock says we are not in the situation where doctors have to chose which patients will be treated and which will not because resources are so limited. He says the advice he has been given is that there is no need to change the law to give them indemnity if they have to take decisions that put lives at risk, he says.
He ends the press conference by saying the fact that this question was asked, by a journalist from the BMJ, highlights how much pressure the NHS is facing.
And that’s it.
Q: Will you start lifting restrictions in early March, when immunity kicks in for people in the top four priority groups? Will schools reopen at the same time?
Hancock says there are four conditions for restrictions to be eased. The first two are deaths coming down and hospital numbers coming down. Those two things are not happening, he says.
Third, the vaccine programme has to work, he says. He says so far it is going well.
And, fourth, there has to be no new threat from a new variant. That is being monitored all the time, he says.
Hopkins says the government has always said the schools should be the last to close and the first to open. But it cannot be more specific than that, she says.
Q: Can families now feel confident in booking a break for the summer holidays?
Hancock says he is going to Cornwall for his summer holidays. He thinks we will have a great British summer. The government hopes to vaccinate all adults by September. Anything earlier is a bonus, he says.
Updated
Q: You said recently we needed a national debate about who should be prioritised in the second stage. How do you decide between a teacher, a police officer and a shop worker?
Hopkins says we are learning more about which groups spread transmission most. But it might be necessary to target those most at risk of hospitalisation, she says.
Q: How do you respond to the head of the World Health Organization saying the distribution of vaccines globally is putting the world on the brink of a “catastrophic moral failure”.
Hancock says the UK is the biggest financial supporter of the initiative to ensure that countries around the world get access to affordable vaccines. He says he agrees with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the importance of a global rollout. He looks forward to working with the WHO on this. He wants to see the whole world vaccinated.
Updated
Q: What do you say to those who are over 80 who have not been vaccinated yet?
Hancock says everyone in the top four priority groups, including the over-80s, will have been offered a jab by 15 February.
Q: Why are some areas doing worse than others? Are they not getting supplies? Or are they less well organised?
There are lots of reasons, Hancock says.
He says setting up sites can be difficult.
Updated
Q: [From the BBC’s Hugh Pym] There are regional variations in vaccine take-up. What do you say to local teams who cannot get enough doses?
Hancock says some places have gone faster than average. They will be able to move on to the next group. But supply is being prioritised for areas that have not yet vaccinated all the over-80s.
He says people who are over 80 will be invited to get a vaccine within the next four weeks, hopefully earlier rather than later.
Supply is the rate-limiting factor, he says.
Q: What are the plans to protect people working on the front line?
Hancock says the vaccination programme is targeting the most vulnerable. That will help, he says. But he accepts the questioner wants to know what will happen now.
Hopkins says the MHRA has approved lateral flow tests for exceptional use. That will allow more community testing, she says.
Hancock confirms more than 4 million people have now had first dose of vaccine
Hancock says 4,062,501 people in the UK have now been vaccinated. He says the UK is vaccinating people at more than double the rate of other countries in Europe.
More than half of over-80s and more than half of care home residents have now had the first dose of the vaccine, he says.
And he praises places like Slough, where he says all care home residents have now been vaccinated.
Updated
Hancock says NHS under 'significant pressure', with record 37,474 Covid patients in UK hospitals
Hancock starts by reading out the latest data. (See 4.22pm.)
He says there are 37,475 people in hospitals in the UK with Covid. That is the highest figure during the pandemic, he says. He says hospitals are under “significant pressure” in all parts of the UK.
Updated
Matt Hancock's press conference
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is about to hold a press conference at No 10.
He will be with Prof Stephen Powis, the national medical director for NHS England, and Prof Susan Hopkins, a senior medical adviser at Public Health England.
HuffPost’s Paul Waugh has more from the public accounts committee hearing.
.@didoharding grilled by @RicHolden on why NHS labs are better at turnaround cases than non-nHS labs. She defends twin track approach but fails to say why the PM's target of 100% turnaround in 24 hours has still not been met. Remember PM said that target wd be hit last June
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) January 18, 2021
DHSC perm sec says of Test And Trace ”it has been for practical purposes embedded in the department”.
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) January 18, 2021
That's precisely the criticism some make, that it shd really be called "Dept of Health Test and Trace", not "NHS Test and Trace".
He further reveals that 20% of 207 new contracts for covid procurement (worth £1.3bn) have been made *without* tendering or competition. Contracts are for "test consumables, lab capacity and so on".
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) January 18, 2021
That's since Nov and last NAO report.
In the Commons Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow work and pensions secretary, has just opened the debate on Labour’s motion calling for the £20-per-week universal credit uplift to be maintained.
Here is the Labour motion.
That this house believes that the government should stop the planned cut in universal credit and working tax credit in April and give certainty today to the 6 million families for whom it is worth an extra £1,000 a year.
And here is the government amendment - effectively an alternative proposal.
Line 1, leave out from ‘house’ to end and add ‘recognises that the government’s comprehensive £280 billion response to the pandemic included a temporary and emergency £6 billion increase to welfare support specifically designed to help low income families, including increasing universal credit and working tax credits by £1,000 for 12 months until the end of March 2021; notes that this is just one of a range of measures the government has taken to support vulnerable families; further notes that the government’s response has reduced the scale of losses for the poorest working households by up to two-thirds; and regrets the leader of the opposition’s call to scrap universal credit, a system which has delivered for nearly 6 million low income people and families through this emergency.’
During opposition day debates MPs vote on the main motion before amendments and, with the Tories abstaining on the Labour motion, it is certain to be passed. That means the Tory amendment won’t be put to a vote.
Updated
Twice as many people died of Covid in England in December than the next most-common cause of death, rising to almost triple the rate in Wales, according to the Office for National Statistics.
In the final month of 2020 there were 233.6 Covid deaths per 100,000 people in England and 374.4 deaths per 100,000 people in Wales.
The second most common cause of death in December 2020 was dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, at 112.0 deaths per 100,000 people in England and 121.2 deaths per 100,000 in Wales.
The fact that Covid deaths outstripped other causes of death in both November and December contributed to coronavirus being the leading cause of death in England and Wales last year.
In 2020 as a whole Covid was the main cause of death in 12.1% of all deaths in England and 11.7% of all deaths in Wales (this statistical bulletin concentrates on deaths “due to” Covid, as opposed to those where it was a contributory factor in the death).
The second-most common cause of death in both countries was dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, which accounted for 11.6% of all deaths in England and 10.4% of those Wales across the full year.
In December, more than a fifth of deaths in England were directly caused by Covid-19 (20.8%), rising to almost a quarter (24.3%) when counting all deaths where coronavirus was a contributory factor.
The equivalent figures for Wales show that 27.4% of deaths registered in December were due to Covid, rising to 31.3% of deaths which involved coronavirus.
Updated
There has been a row in Wales today about whether or not the government there is delaying the distribution of some vaccine doses. Mark Drakeford, the first minister, said it was, but Kirsty Williams, the education minister, said it wasn’t. (See 4.08pm.)
This is what a Welsh government spokesman has said in an attempt to clarify the matter.
The Pfizer vaccine comes in large packs, which cannot be split and must be stored at ultra-low temperatures – at minus 70C.
There are only two centres in Wales where we can keep them at this temperature. Once removed from storage, the vaccine lasts five days.
Every dose wasted is a vaccine which cannot be given to someone in Wales.
Health boards are receiving all the doses of Pfizer they can use. We want to ensure a consistent supply of the vaccine to minimise wastage.
Less than 1% of the vaccines have not been used, way below the wastage rates normally seen for vaccines.
Updated
Earlier at the public accounts committee hearing David Williams, the second permanent secretary at the Department of Health, would not deny reports that some consultants working on test and trace had been paid £7,000 per day. When asked about those reports, he said he did not want to comment on specific contracts. But he claimed that consultancy firms were not charging their normal public sector rate, and that he did not think they were taking advantage of the government.
These are from Andy Cowper, a Health Service Journal columnist.
"I don;t want to get into the specific detail of individual contracts", DHBSC's David Williams tells @CommonsPAC when asked about TAT consultants £7,000 day rate. He should be pulled on that immediately.
— Andy Cowper (@HPIAndyCowper) January 18, 2021
That is literally what Williams is there to do. But he carries on with un-evidenced round objects about consultants "dropping their usual pubic sector day rate". Is that going to be challenged?
— Andy Cowper (@HPIAndyCowper) January 18, 2021
Later, when asked about the number of consultants from Deloitte working on the programme, Williams said there were about 900 – down from 1,000 in October. He said they were paid on average around £1,000 per day.
Updated
The home secretary, Priti Patel, has commissioned an internal review into the loss of hundreds of thousands of records from a police database, the policing minister, Kit Malthouse, told MPs in a Commons statement.
Updated
UK records 599 further Covid deaths and 37,535 cases
Public Health England (PHE) said a further 599 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Monday, bringing the UK total to 89,860.
As PA Media reports, separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 105,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
PHE also said a total of 4,062,501 people in the UK have received the first dose of a vaccine.
As of 9am on Monday, there had been a further 37,535 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.
It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 3,433,494.
The figures should be available on the government’s dashboard later.
Due to technical difficulties, today's update to the #COVID19 Dashboard is delayed. An update is expected by 17:00 GMT.
— Public Health England (@PHE_uk) January 18, 2021
There have been 37,535 new cases and 599 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.
A total of 4,062,501 people have now received the 1st dose of a #vaccine. pic.twitter.com/MTLo6bYj6c
According to the Metropolitan police, 14 people had been issued with fines after the protest in Westminster this morning by lorry drivers representing the fishing industry.
A spokesperson from Eyemouth-based DR Collin & Son, which was taking part in the protest, said:
The industry is being tied in knots with paperwork requirements which would be easy enough to navigate, given that companies have put in the time and training in order to have all the relevant procedures in place for 1st January 2021.
However, all the training is going to waste as the technology is outdated and cannot cope with the demands being placed on it – which in turn is resulting in no produce being able to leave the UK.
These are not ‘teething issues’ as reported by the government and the consequences of these problems will be catastrophic on the lives of fishermen, fishing towns and the shellfish industry as a whole.
Asked about the protest, Boris Johnson claimed there were “great opportunities” for the industry after Brexit. He said:
There are great opportunities for fishermen across the whole of the UK to take advantage of the spectacular marine wealth of the United Kingdom.
In just five-and-a-half years’ time, we will have access to all the fish in all our waters. And just now, we have access to 25% more than we did just a month ago. That means there is scope for fishing communities across the UK to take advantage of the increase in quota.
What we’re going to do is give people a helping hand and that’s why we’ve set up the £100m fund to help people with boats, to help with the fish processing industry, the opportunity is massive.
He also said a £23m compensation fund was available to help fish suppliers who have genuine buyers available in the EU. (See 3.38pm.)
Updated
At the Welsh government’s coronavirus briefing earlier Kirsty Williams, the education minister, claimed there was no delay in the distribution of vaccines in Wales. She said:
We are not delaying the use of Pfizer vaccine to anybody in Wales, and we are as keen as anybody to get those vaccinations out.
As soon as we became aware in government on January 4 that we could move from a double-dose regime to a single dose, we have been ramping up the capacity to deliver that vaccination as quickly as we possibly can.
Because of the limitations on storage and the moving of the Pfizer vaccine, the most efficient way of doing that is via mass vaccination centres.
Clearly we need to go even faster but we need to do that in a way that maximises that precious resource and doesn’t lead to the wastage of any vaccines.
We expect to see increasing supplies of Oxford/AstraZeneca coming to Wales this week and next week. Of the supplies of Oxford/AstraZeneca we already have, some 95% of that stock has already been used.
Earlier in the day Mark Drakeford, the first minister, said doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine were being used gradually so that supplies would last six weeks. (See 1.19pm.)
Updated
A man who travelled 30 miles to take pictures for a photography competition and nine people who got together for a “gender reveal party” were among those who were issued with fixed penalty notices this weekend by South Wales police.
The force received almost 400 reports of possible breaches to Covid regulations and stopped 143 cars in three hours on the Gower peninsula, with “the vast majority of people found to have travelled without reasonable excuse.”
Other rule breakers included parents who drove to test out their daughter’s quad bike at fields in Bridgend and a group who got together to watch football in Swansea.
Officers have also warned a group of up to 30 young people to stop “free running” over rooftops in Barry.
Updated
Johnson says future of £20-per-week universal credit uplift still under review
Boris Johnson has been speaking to broadcasters on a visit to the Oxford BioMedica plant at Oxford. (See 3.16pm.) Here are some of his main points.
- Johnson said the future of the £20-per-week universal credit beyond March was still under review. Asked about tonight’s vote on the Labour motion saying the uplift should remain, he said:
What we have said is we will put our arms around the whole of the country throughout the pandemic. We have already done £280bn worth of support and we will keep all measures under constant review.
He also claimed Labour would abolish universal credit. He said:
It’s the policy of the opposition to abolish universal credit altogether, which I don’t think is a sensible way forward.
Earlier Sir Keir Starmer said this claim was a “completely false point”. (See 1.34pm.) According to today’s Financial Times, one option being considered by the government is to abolish the weekly uplift by replacing it with a one-off payment of £500, or perhaps even £1,000. But the Resolution Foundation’s Torsten Bell has argued that one-off payments would not be the right solution.
- Johnson said 4 million people have now been vaccinated. He said:
We’re getting it out as fast as we can, 4 million done so far, I think we’ve done more than half of the over-80s, half of the people in care homes, the elderly residents of care homes.
Those groups remain our top priority, they’re an absolute priority for us, but it’s right as more vaccine comes on stream to get it into the arms of the other groups on the JCVI list.
According to the figures published yesterday afternoon, 3.8 million people in the UK had then had a first dose. Today’s full figures will be available later.
- Johnson stressed that the easing of restrictions would be “gradual”. He said:
We’re going as fast as we can but I stress we can do everything we can to open up but when we come to February 15, and the moment when we have to take stock of what we’ve achieved, that’s the time to look at where the virus is, the extent of the infection and the success that we’ve had.
It’s only really then that we can talk about the way ahead and what steps we can take to relax.
I’m afraid I’ve got to warn people it will be gradual, you can’t just open up in a great open sesame, in a great bang, because I’m afraid the situation is still pretty precarious.
- He dismissed claims there was an element of postcode lottery in provision of the vaccine. “I think actually the whole of the UK is going very well,” he said. “And, overall, the pace of the rollout is very encouraging.”
- He said a £23m compensation fund was available to help fish suppliers who have genuine buyers available in the EU. He said:
Where businesses – through no fault of their own – have experienced bureaucratic delays, difficulties, getting their goods through where there is a genuine, willing buyer on the other side of the Channel and they have had a problem, then there is a £23m compensation fund that we have set up and they will get help.
Updated
Harding says the service is more than reaching the target set by Sage, that it should reach more than 60% of contacts within 72 hours.
The system has got better “very, very fast”, she says.
Q: How many care homes are getting two tests a week for staff, and one test a week for residents?
Harding says she thinks 100% of care homes have been doing weekly PCR tests since September. She says lateral flow tests, which give rapid results, have now been rolled out too. And she says since early December care homes have been able to do twice weekly lateral flow testing, in addition to the PCR testing.
She says care homes are also testing staff daily if there is an outbreak.
NHS England has announced 532 further coronavirus hospital deaths. The details are here.
A week ago today the figure was 489, and two weeks ago today the figure was 376.
Dido Harding rejects claims test and trace only having marginal impact on transmission
The Labour MP Nick Smith goes next.
Q: How effective is test and trace?
Harding says you can measure that in a number of ways.
She says in October test and trace was reducing R, the reproduction number, by between 0.3 and 0.6.
And she says by March that should be a reduction of between 0.5 and 0.8.
She says the service is breaking chains of transmission.
She says that every minute 965 people are being swabbed.
She says every minute of the working day 198 people a minute are being successfully traced.
And she says the test-and-trace infrastructure is helping to provide the analysis as to how the disease is spreading.
Q: How does that square with Sage saying a few months ago that your impact on transmission was “marginal”?
Harding says Sage said that a while back. She does not accept that. She thinks the service is having a “material” impact.
UPDATE: Harding told Smith.
There is no doubt that as we have built and scaled the service, we have learnt more and more and we are now hitting all of the operational contact tracing targets that Sage [Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies] set us.
We are reaching more than 80% of people who test positive, we are reaching more than 90% of their contacts and the 92% of all contacts we reached last week - three-quarters of a million people - 97% of them we reached in less than 24 hours.
So, no, I don’t believe we are having a marginal impact, actually. As measured, we are having a material impact in the fight against Covid.
Updated
Meg Hillier, the Labour chair of the committee, asks about mass testing in schools, and why the MHRA has not approved the approach being adopted by the government.
Harding says it is not quite right to say the MHRA do not approve.
She says schools have been doing this on a pilot basis. The evidence is being shared with the MHRA.
Dido Harding questioned by MPs about test and trace
The Commons public accounts committee has just started taking evidence in a hearing on NHS Test and Trace. The witnesses are Dido Harding, head of the organisation; Sir Chris Wormald permanent secretary, at the Department of Health; David Williams, the second permanent secretary at the department; and Jonathan Marron, director general for community and social care at the department.
There is a live feed at the top of the blog.
Harding says she was asked by the PM at the start of May to launch a test and trace service by the end of the month. She was already chair of NHS Improvement, she says. Asked why she accepted, she says:
I take the view that when your prime minister calls you and asks you to serve, you should.
Asked about the main lesson she has learned, she says that you can only deliver a service like this as part of an integrated network of different organisations. Everyone has to play their part, she says.
Updated
Sir Keir Starmer accused the government of trying to blame fishing communities for the issues caused by Brexit. Referring to today’s protests at Westminster, he said:
[People in the fishing industry are] beyond frustrated, they are pretty angry about what’s gone on because the government has known there would be a problem with fishing and particularly the sale of fish into the EU for years.
It didn’t prepare for it and now it is doing the classic thing of the government, which is trying to blame the fishing communities rather than accepting it’s their failure to prepare.
I’m not in favour of dumping fish on Boris Johnson’s lawn or anything like that, but the point they are trying to make is a very important point about the government not preparing, and then again blaming somebody else for the mess that they have created.
In the Commons last week George Eustice, the environment secretary, suggested the problems being encountered by the fishing industry would ease once they got used to dealing with the new paperwork.
Updated
At the lobby briefing this morning the Downing Street officials talking to journalists spent quite a lot of time trying to defend two particularly provocative statements from ministers yesterday.
- The PM’s press secretary, Allegra Stratton, claimed that Boris Johnson was not comparing activists using Twitter to criticise Tory MPs over universal credit to the mob that stormed the US Capitol in a message yesterday. In a WhatsApp message to MPs explaining why the Conservatives would abstain in tonight’s vote (see 9.20am), Johnson wrote:
Folks I know that many of you are thirsting to give battle and vote against all Labour motions.
But after the shameful way in which they used their army of momentum trolls last time to misrepresent the outcome and to lie about its meaning and frankly to intimidate and threaten colleagues – especially female colleagues – I have decided not to give them that opportunity.
We can be proud of what we are doing to tackle all the consequences of the pandemic and if Labour decides to stop playing politics and to stop inciting the worst kind of hatred and bullying (of a kind seen sadly across the Atlantic) then I may think again about legislatively vacuous opposition debates.
This message implies that intimidation was a reason for the Conservative party abstaining, instead of voting against the Labour motion, but Stratton said the party was abstaining because now was not the day for the government to be announcing how it would replace the universal credit uplift when it ends in March. She claimed the Labour motion was a “stunt” because Labour knows the chancellor will be coming forward with an alternative plan. (That is true, but the crucial point is that it has not said yet what the alternative is. Labour says it should just continue with the £20-per-week uplift.)
Stratton said the PM’s message yesterday referred to the abuse some MPs received after they voted against extending free school meals last year. Asked if the PM felt that the intimidation of MPs on social media was being encouraged by Labour, she said that was not something she had heard the PM say. Asked if the PM was saying that the criticism of MPs on Twitter was like the storming of the Capitol in the US, she said:
It is clearly not like the storming of the Capitol. The prime minister is urging everybody ... to be civil and kind to each other when debating matters that clearly matter greatly to people up and down the country.
Asked if the PM regretted some of his own inflammatory language during the last parliament, when he accused anti-Brexit MPs of wanting to “surrender” to Brussels, she just said the key thing was that he wanted people to be civil in future.
- Downing Street was unable to provide any evidence to back up Robert Jenrick’s claim in an article yesterday that “town hall militants and woke worthies” are pulling down statues without public support. (See 10.56am.) Asked to provide an example of this, the prime minister’s spokesman just made a broad point about the government being in favour of educating people about Britain’s heritage, not taking down statues. Asked why Jenrick criticised Birmingham council for giving new streets names like “Diversity Grove” and “Humanity Close”, and whether that was wrong, the spokesman said Jenrick’s article was mainly about statues. The naming of streets was a matter for councils, the spokesman said. When it was pointed out to him that Birmingham council chose these names after a consultation with the public, and when he was asked if the council was wrong to do this, the spokesman just urged reporters to read Jenrick’s article. At this point the briefing got faintly comic.
Q [From journalist]: But the words of the cabinet minister are criticising the names chosen by a council which was done by consulting the public. Was it wrong for the council to ask the public what to call these streets?
Spokesman: Again, I will point you back to what he has and what I’ve just said about the importance of using our heritage to educate future generations on all aspects of our history, whether that’s good or bad.
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Speaking to reporters on a visit to Streatham in south-west London, Sir Keir Starmer said Conservatives like Boris Johnson were making a “completely false point” when they accused him of wanting to abolish universal credit, as they have been doing repeatedly in recent days. (We heard that line again from Allegra Stratton, the prime minister’s press secretary, at the No 10 lobby briefing today – more on that coming up soon.) Starmer said:
Nobody’s talking about scrapping it in the middle of a pandemic. It’s a completely false point to take the focus off the real issue. The real issue is: in a pandemic, do you really strip away £20 from desperate families?
That’s a difference, over a year, of about £1,000 – that’s paying the gas, the electricity and the internet bills.
Labour is committed to replacing universal credit with a supposedly better system – not just abandoning the payment of benefits, as some of the Tory comments imply.
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Welsh first minister defends staggered rollout of Pfizer Covid vaccine
As my colleague Steven Morris reports, Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, has defended his government’s decision to string out the use of tens of thousands of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine until new supplies become available - instead of using them as quickly as possible.
But the BMA Cymru Wales, which represents doctors, has said it is “extremely concerned” about the policy.
Extremely concerned @WelshGovernment is spacing out the Pfizer vaccine to make it last until the next delivery. If Pfizer vaccines are available, second does must be given to HCWs within the maximum 42 day timeline & all remaining vaccinations for staff must be accelerated. https://t.co/JB3ALDXYAh
— BMA Cymru Wales (@BMACymru) January 18, 2021
In a post on Facebook Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, has said that “something is not quite working right” with the distribution of vaccine in her Suffolk Coastal constituency. She explained:
Something is not quite working right yet though, particularly in one part of the constituency, as I am hearing from people in part of the area that 80+ and 90+ year olds have not been contacted while some 70+ patients in the same GP practice were invited for vaccination.
I know it is both distressing and annoying when people hear that other cohorts of a lower priority (according to the JCVI) are being vaccinated ahead of our oldest and most vulnerable. On that point, every care home resident will be vaccinated by next Sunday.
I am already in regular contact with the NHS and ministers but will be following up with the local NHS to work out what is going on regarding contacting 80+ population (main route is by text and/or letter) and will be pressing for some local communication.
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Justin Welby, the archbishop of Cantebury, has had the coronavirus vaccine. He volunteers with the chaplaincy team at St Thomas’ hospital in London, and so he qualifies as a health and social care worker. He has described the development of the vaccine as “an answer to prayer”.
As a volunteer member of the @GSTTnhs chaplaincy team, I was given the first shot of the #Covid19Vaccine this weekend.
— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) January 18, 2021
Please get the jab when you’re invited. And please do everything you can to support staff across the NHS who are doing so much to keep us safe. pic.twitter.com/OA5v7xM462
Priti Patel, the home secretary, has said that tougher action will be taken against anti-lockdown protesters. Speaking outside St Thomas’s hospital in central London, the scene of an anti-lockdown protest on New Year’s Eve, she called for people to take responsibility for their actions. Asked whether there would be tougher enforcement to target protesters she told PA Media:
Absolutely, without hesitation. When you look at the pressures on the NHS - and we have been saying this for too long, quite frankly - the public need to take responsibility, act conscientiously, wear their masks, wear face coverings, follow the rules, follow the regulations.
Asked about the loss of records from the police national computer, she said officials were “working flat out on this” and that Kit Malthouse, the policing minister, would give an update to MPs later.
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Covid hospital numbers in Scotland close to 2,000, latest figures show
At her news conference in Edinburgh Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has announced the latest coronavirus figures.
- There are 1,959 Covid patients in hospital in Scotland, Sturgeon said. That is an increase of 41 from yesterday. During the first wave of the pandemic hospital numbers in Scotland peaked at around 1,500.
- There have been 1,429 further positive cases, Sturgeon said. And she said 12.3% of tests were positive. A week ago today the equivalent figures were 1,782 and 11.5%.
- She said there had been 78 further deaths since Friday.
- She said 264,991 people in Scotland, including almost all care home residents, have now been vaccinated. She said the Scottish government was on course to vaccinate everyone in the top two priority groups – care home residents, health and social care staff and the over-80s – by the start of February.
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Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is going to take the No 10 press conference at 5pm this afternoon, Downing Street has announced.
Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex/Shutterstock
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In an interview with BBC News, Devi Sridhar, a professor of global public health at Edinburgh University and an adviser to the Scottish government on Covid, said she was “quite optimistic” about the prospects for the UK. In the past she has been quite critical of the UK government’s coronavirus policy, but she said the new travel restrictions, which came into force at 4am this morning, were particularly welcome. She said:
Well, we got there, better late than never. And I’m actually quite optimistic. I feel like we’re getting towards where we need to be going into the summer months.
We now have restrictions in place, which means the numbers are coming down. Hopefully in hospitals some of the pressure will start to be released when we get to February. We have vaccines being rolled out incredibly rapidly, and we can have a chance to get our test, trace, isolate system up and going when the numbers come low enough.
And now [the travel restrictions] are incredibly important because we don’t want to bring in new variants, which means our vaccines don’t work against them. And that was the final piece of this puzzle.
So I feel like we’re slowly getting to a comprehensive approach which means, at least domestically, the UK can open up fully and get back to some normality.
Sridhar said the next few months would be rough, but that there was a real opportunity to lift restrictions going into the spring, and that in the summer the case numbers could get “really low”.
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These are from my colleague Jessica Elgot on the suggestion from Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, that teachers might get priority in the next phase of the vaccine rollout. (See 10.40am.)
Health department sources v adamant that key scientific priority is prevention of deaths and serious illness - teachers actually less at risk of this because average age is 39. So shop workers, transport staff, taxi drivers on this measure would get priority. BUT cont... https://t.co/NAP30aW72z
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) January 18, 2021
Decision for next phase will also have to be political - teachers cannot wear PPE and also there is huge ripple effect when they get sick - even if they are statistically less likely to get seriously ill. So that would be ministerial reasoning for having them next in line.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) January 18, 2021
In his interview this morning Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, said he was worried about the vaccine take-up among people who are black, Asian or minority ethnic, and that he was spending a lot of time working with people in local government to address this. He said:
I am worried about BAME communities, which is why I’m spending a lot of time with the mayors, with Sadiq [Khan, the mayor of London], and of course other parts of local government to make sure we reach those hard-to-reach groups.
My big worry is if 85% of the adult population get vaccinated, if the 15% skews heavily to the BAME community, the virus will very quickly infect that community.
At the end of last week Sage, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, released a paper (pdf) showing the extent of “vaccine hesitancy” among different ethnic groups. There are striking differences, with black people much, much more sceptical about vaccines than people in other groups. The figures are from a survey in November involving more than 11,000 people.
The Sage paper cites various explanations for higher vaccine hesitancy among minority ethnic groups, including the under-representation of minority ethnic groups in health research, historical problems with unethical healthcare research, and misinformation. This article, by HuffPost’s Nadine White, explains the phenomenon in more detail.
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Optimism is generally quite attractive in politics (it helps to explain Boris Johnson’s electoral success, even though often his exuberance sounds preposterous) and in his public statements Sir Keir Starmer also makes a point of trying to sound positive, not negative, about the future. He was doing it again in his interview on ITV’s Lorraine. Talking about the end of the pandemic, he said:
People want to go back to normality, but after what we have been through we can’t go back to business as usual because if this pandemic has done one thing it has absolutely, brutally, exposed the inequalities in our society and we owe it to the country to build a better Britain coming out of this, and a united one.
One of the reasons I’m very excited about what’s happening in America is I have seen, for the first time in a number of years, hope triumphing over hatred. We all need to get behind that.
This is a rare example of Starmer emulating Jeremy Corbyn. In his excellent book on Corbyn’s leadership of Labour, my colleague Owen Jones says Corbyn vetoed an anti-Tory attack ad in the 2017 campaign, about a disastrous interview given by Michael Fallon, because it was not hopeful. “I want everything we write and put out to be hopeful,” Corbyn said at the time. “If we’re attacking them, it should be on their record, not on their mistakes.”
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Covid deaths in poorest parts of England almost three times as high as in richest parts, ONS says
The most deprived people in England were almost three times as likely to die of Covid-19 compared with the most affluent in 2020.
Between March and December last year the Covid-19 mortality rate for the most deprived 10% of the country was 2.8 times the rate of the wealthiest 10%, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. There were 266.3 deaths per 100,000 people in the most deprived areas, compared with 96.1 deaths per 100,000 in the least deprived areas.
Stark inequality also persisted in Wales, where people living in the poorest areas of the country were more than twice as likely to die of Covid-19 as those in the wealthiest parts.
Between March and December last year the mortality rate due to Covid-19 for the most deprived areas of Wales was 2.1 times the rate of that in the wealthiest areas. There were 255.1 deaths per 100,000 people in the most deprived 20% of the country, compared with 120.4 deaths per 100,000 in the least deprived 20% of the country.
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At Westminster this morning lorry drivers are staging a protest on behalf of the Scottish fishing industry, which has seen orders lost, prices fall and boats tied up in port because post-Brexit regulations are making it much harder for them to export their produce.
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Yesterday, in an article in the Sunday Telegraph (paywall), also written up as a news story, Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, announced plans intended to make it harder for local councils in England to remove contentious historical statues. He claimed:
Latterly there has been an attempt to impose a single, often negative narrative which not so much recalls our national story, as seeks to erase part of it. This has been done at the hand of the flash mob, or by the decree of a ‘cultural committee’ of town hall militants and woke worthies. We live in a country that believes in the rule of law, but when it comes to protecting our heritage, due process has been overridden.
This morning Jenrick has published more details of his plans, in a lengthy written ministerial statement and also in a more simplified news release.
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Vaccine programme should lead to 'marked reduction' in deaths from early March, says minister
Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, made his comments about Labour this morning (see 9.20am) in the midst of a long round of interviews about the vaccination programme. Here are the main points he was making.
- Zahawi said that from early March the vaccination programme should lead to a “marked reduction” in deaths. Expanding on a point also made by Prof Stephen Powis (see 9.45am), Zahawi said:
There is some really good early data from Israel, where they have vaccinated 20% of the over-60s and they are beginning to see, two weeks later, a marked reduction in the serious illness and death in that same cohort. So, two weeks after mid-February, we should be seeing a marked reduction in death and of course serious illness.
He also suggested that, because those most at risk of death from Covid were being prioritised for the vaccine, hospital and death numbers might fall faster than case numbers. He said:
[It should be in the] first, second week of March, where you should be seeing very clear evidence of a sort of a break in the correlation between infection rates and hospitalisation and obviously death, because this is a race against death.
But of course, there are a lot of unknowns, we don’t know the impact on transmission of the vaccines yet. There are lots of caveats on this so I don’t want to sort of over-promise and under-deliver on this.
- He said he was opposed to employees being forced to have a vaccine. Commenting on the plan by Pimlico Plumbers to require all its workers to get vaccinated, he said:
I think that is discriminatory. We’re not that sort of country and I think it’s important we do it by persuasion.
- He said offering vaccinations 24 hours a day would be piloted at hospitals in London before the end of January. Later it might be rolled out more generally, he said. He said 8am to 8pm vaccination “works much more conveniently for those who are over 80 and then as you move down the age groups it becomes much more convenient for people to go late at night and in the early hours”.
- He said the supply of vaccine was “lumpy” and was the factor limiting the rollout of jabs. He said:
We now have built a deployment infrastructure that can deploy as much vaccine as it comes through. And so it’s the vaccine supply – which remains lumpy, it remains challenging, you may have read over the weekend probably some of the challenges around Pfizer and of course Oxford/AstraZeneca – but I’m confident we can meet our target mid-Feb, [for] those top four cohorts.
- He suggested that when the second phase of the vaccination starts – covering adults under the age of 50 – people such as teachers, the police and shop workers would get priority. He said:
My instinct is that anyone who, through no fault of their own, has to come into contact with the virus in much greater volume and probability should be protected – teachers, policemen and women, shop workers, all those who need that additional protection.
Now, some of them will be captured in the top nine categories anyway if they are clinically vulnerable, for example, or in that age group of the over-50s which are in category nine, effectively.
But phase two – of course we’ll be guided by the JCVI [Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation – the body in charge of drawing up the priority lists] – but my instinct is that if you work in a job, a shop worker, policemen or women, any other profession which brings you into contact with the virus unfairly, then I think you should be prioritised.
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Starmer says PM's decision to abstain on benefits uplift vote 'pathetic'
Sir Keir Starmer has criticised the vaccine deployment minister, Nadhim Zahawi, for calling Labour’s vote on keeping the £20-per-week universal credit uplift a “stunt”. (See 9.20am.) In an interview on ITV’s Lorraine, Starmer also said Boris Johnson’s decision to order Tory MPs to abstain in the vote was “pathetic” and that lots of Conservatives probably privately agreed with Labour on this issue.
He told the programme:
If [Zahawi] is going to call it a stunt, he should probably come with me to a food distribution centre to see these families this morning and explain to them what is a lifeline to them is a ‘stunt’, because it certainly isn’t from their point of view.
I actually think in their heart of hearts quite a lot of Tory MPs know that cutting this money to people who desperately need it in the middle of a pandemic is the wrong thing to do, they know that, they probably want to vote with us but because of the tribal way we do politics they can’t.
The prime minister’s now saying in answer to the question ‘do you think this uplift should stay or not’, he’s saying ‘I don’t want to say yes and I don’t want to say no so we’re going to abstain’. He’s got no view on whether it should stay or not – that’s pretty pathetic.
I think in their heart of hearts they [Tory MPs] would actually vote with us today if they had the option to do so.
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All eligible care home residents in Newcastle upon Tyne and most of the staff looking after them have received the coronavirus vaccine, the GP leading the project has said. As PA Media reports, Dr Jane Carman said the programme involved seven teams made up of a doctor, nurse and administrator going to each home, working with care staff and completing the task in less than a fortnight. She said none of the residents refused to have the jab.
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Vaccination programme won't impact on deaths or hospital admissions until 'well into February', says health chief
Prof Stephen Powis, the national medical director for NHS England, told ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning that the vaccination programme won’t have an impact on hospital admissions or death rates until “well into February”. He said:
For the next few weeks and into February, it’s really important that everybody sticks to those social distancing guidelines. The vaccine programme gives us hope, but it’s not going to impact on deaths or hospital admissions until well into February.
But Powis did say the infection rate had “slowed down” in London. And he said there were early signs that the lockdown was having an effect, although he said thiswould take a week or two to “feed through into hospital admissions, and to begin to take pressure off hospitals”.
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There will be a Commons statement on the police national computer data loss at 3.30pm, which means the debate on the Labour motion on universal credit won’t start until around 4.30pm. Labour is criticising Priti Patel, the home secretary, for sending out her policing minister, Kit Malthouse, to deal with it, instead of giving the statement herself.
🚨one statement at 3.30pm:
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) January 18, 2021
Update on Police National Computer - @kitmalthouse #whereIsPritiPatel
Given the severity of this matter, the Home Secretary must come and give a full and frank explanation of what when wrong, why, when she found out and what she is doing to fix it
From Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor
Today I call on all Conservative MPs to do the right thing and vote with Labour to #CancelTheCut to Universal Credit.
— Anneliese Dodds 💙 (@AnnelieseDodds) January 18, 2021
After the worst recession of any major economy, the Government should be supporting families through this crisis.
Instead it's hitting them in their pockets.
Minister dismisses Labour vote on extending £20-per-week benefit uplift as 'political stunt'
Good morning. This week the government in England is starting to invite people over the age of 70 and people who are “clinically extremely vulnerable” to attend appointments for a vaccination. These are people in the third and fourth priority groups for the vaccine, and the government is taking this step because of the good progress being made in vaccinating everyone in priority groups one and two (care home residents and their carers, the over-80s and health and social care workers). Boris Johnson is expected to visit a vaccination centre today to promote the news.
But this development will be at least partially overshadowed by a Commons row about what the government is doing to protect those facing worsening poverty because of the pandemic. Today is one of the days allocated for a debate on an opposition motion and this evening MPs will vote on a motion tabled by Sir Keir Starmer saying the government should abandon plans to scrap the £20-a-week uplift to universal credit announced when the pandemic started. The increase was only meant to be temporary, and making it permanent would cost around £6bn a year.
Johnson has ordered his MPs to abstain on the motion. That means the Labour motion will pass, which will be embarrassing for the government – although not binding on it. Ministers can, and do, ignore motions passed by the House of Commons if they are not related to legislation or Commons procedure. But Johnson has calculated that this will be less embarrassing then sending his MPs through the lobbies to actually vote against retaining the increase. Johnson has still not said what will happen from April when the uplift comes to an end. An announcement is due in the budget in March.
Here is our overnight preview story, highlighting research from the Resolution Foundation thinktank saying “the withdrawal of the extra £20 on universal credit (UC) and working tax credits (WTC), due to expire in April 2021, and the expected increase in unemployment of 900,000 in 2021-22 as the [furlough scheme] comes to an end, together mean that typical non-pensioner household incomes are projected to fall by 0.4% in 2021-22.”
This morning Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, dismissed the Commons vote as a “political stunt”. He told Sky News:
It’s unfortunate that Labour has chosen a political stunt. This debate today has no real impact on the outcome on those families, other than a political little stunt for Labour.
Zahawi’s reliance on this line of attack is indicative of the weakness of the government’s stance on this issue. Debating and voting on policy is exactly what the Commons is there for. It is hard to see how it is inappropriate.
Here is the agenda for the day.
12pm: Downing Street is expected to hold its daily lobby briefing.
12.15pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, holds her daily coronavirus briefing.
12.15pm: The Welsh government is expected to hold a coronavirus briefing.
2.30pm: Dido Harding, head of NHS Test and Trace, gives evidence to the Commons public accounts committee.
After 3.30pm: MPs begin the debate on the Labour motion opposing the proposed cut to universal credit.
5pm: A UK government minister is expected to hold a press conference.
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. (The debate on universal credit is somewhere in between. It is not directly relevant to Covid, but it is about the economic consequences of the pandemic.)
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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