Early evening summary
- The UK has recorded 65 new Covid deaths and 4,712 further cases - the lowest numbers on these measures for about five months. (See 4.57pm.)
That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.
The regulator Ofcom has warned broadcasters to take great care their coverage of government Covid briefings does not breach impartiality rules once May’s election campaigns start later this month.
In a decision document (pdf) released today, Ofcom rejected four complaints that BBC Scotland had breached its impartiality rules by giving Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, a political platform and an unfair advantage over other parties by screening her daily Covid briefings.
Ofcom noted Sturgeon did briefly stray into political comment, but said the BBC was not guilty of any breach of the broadcasting code since the Covid crisis was an issue of significant and pressing public importance, and Sturgeon largely stuck to public health advice and policy.
Opposition parties, particularly the Conservatives, have complained vociferously about the airtime Sturgeon has had during the pandemic, and believe it has substantially boosted her popularity and support for the Scottish National party.
The BBC rejected the four complaints, but latterly responded to criticism by cutting the length of Sturgeon’s briefings on the BBC Scotland television channel and allowed opposition spokespeople airtime to debate her decisions.
However, in what it said was an unusual decision, Ofcom published updated its advice to all the UK’s broadcasters that upholding impartiality would be of greater significance when election campaigning starts in England, Scotland and Wales.
“Ofcom reminds all broadcasters that they must comply with the rules for election-related programming,” it said. That included the rules on due impartiality and on balanced coverage during elections under the broadcasting code, and on prohibiting political advertising under the 2003 Communications Act.
It said any breaches could be very quickly investigated and risk a statutory sanction. “Ofcom will consider any breach arising from election-related programming to be potentially serious and will consider taking appropriate regulatory action, which could include the imposition of a statutory sanction,” it warned.
Sarwar ridicules Scottish Tories' offer to work together in anti-SNP coalition
During the Q&A after his speech today (see 12.36pm) Douglas Ross, the Conservative leader in Scotland, was asked if he would be willing to a work in a “grand coalition in order to preserve the union and potentially prevent the SNP from gaining power”. Ross replied: “Very simple answer: yes.”
Ross went on:
We have seen our public services take a back seat to the SNP’s obsession with separating Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom.
So, surely, if the parliamentary maths allow after the next election, for the parties who support Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom continuing and that strong union being maintained, surely we can work together, put aside some political differences to work in the national interest to focus Scotland on a recovery from coronavirus over the next five years, rather than more fights over the constitution.
But Labour’s new leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, did not welcome the offer. At a subsequent press conference, Sarwar said:
What Douglas Ross is trying to do is try and get some relevance for himself when he has been largely irrelevant since becoming Scottish Conservative party leader ...
[Ross] is desperate to pull us back to the arguments pre-Covid, as is the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon, they’re desperate for us to get back to those binary choices where we can pull people back, rather than recognising that the world has changed, Scotland has changed and our politics has to change at the same time as well.
Updated
UK records 65 new deaths and 4,712 further cases - lowest levels for five months
The government has updated its coronavirus dashboard. Recorded deaths are always low on a Monday, because fewer deaths get recorded at the weekend for administrative reasons, but today’s figure of 65 deaths is the lowest total for almost five months. According to the dashboard, the daily recorded total has not been this low since 12 October, when 50 deaths were recorded. Week by week, deaths are down 34.4%.
And 4,712 new cases have been recorded. That is the lowest daily total for new cases by date recorded since 28 September, when 4,044 cases were recorded.
Updated
Q: There are reports that large number of parents are refusing to let their children get tested. Should those pupils be kept separate from other pupils?
Harries says this is an unusual ask, and it will take time for families to get used to this.
She says she thinks, once pupils agree, they will do the tests whether or not their parents approve.
She says she thinks over time parents will give permission.
Q: Isn’t it time for you to come clean with voters, and admit that problems at the border are not teething problems? They are problems with the deal. Lord Frost himself said it would lead to trade barriers. (See 3.10pm.)
Johnson says he thinks it is a great deal. It is a free trade deal, but also gives the UK the opportunity to things differently.
I think it is a great deal because it enables us not just to have free trade with the EU, but also to do what we wanted to do, which is to do things differently where we think that might be a good idea.
In the last few months you’ve seen the examples of that - whether it is in the vaccination rollout programme or in the free trade agreements that we have been able to strike or the free ports that we announced in the Budget - we’re doing other forms of regulation differently.
I think that it is great to get those two things working together - that’s the free trade agreement plus the ability to do things differently and in our own way.
In so far as there are teething problems, he thinks they can be fixed.
Insofar as there have been teething problems - and there is no question that there have been - we’re fixing those now with some temporary, technical things that we’re doing to smooth the flow which, I think, are very, very sensible.
I’m sure that it can all be ironed out and sorted out insofar as the EU objects to that with goodwill and with imagination, and that’s what we intend to bring.
Updated
Q: Is £3.50 per week extra an appropriate reward for nurses?
Johnson says nurses say they want more staff. He says the government is hiring 10,000 more.
He says the extra investment going into the NHS will help with the recruitment drive.
Q: Could schools be forced to close?
Harries says she does not expect that to happen.
Q: Do you think the royal family, or the Queen, are racist?
Johnson congratulates the reporter (Harry Cole from the Sun) to try to get him involved, but he says he is not going to comment.
Q: Two weeks ago you said there would be more in the budget on payments for people who self-isolate. But the budget did not cover that. Is anything new coming?
Johnson says extra money is going to councils. He says he thinks the figure is £170m. That might have been what he had in mind last time he was asked about this.
Q: Will you revise the timetable if the data is encouraging?
Johnson says the data is positive. But he says he remembers what happened last summer. There is “a big budget of risk involved” in opening up schools, he says.
He says he will continue to take a cautious and prudent approach.
Harries says, even with a brilliant vaccination rollout, there will be a proportion of the population who are not protected.
Q: Is this the time to spend £200,000 on your Downing Street flat. Has any of it been paid for by party donors?
Johnson says all he is saying is that all inquiries will be answered in the declarations in the usual way.
Q: Would you consider accelerating the relaxation of rules?
Johnson says it is important to stay prudent. The roadmap is meant to be irreversible. He says he thinks people would rather trade haste for certainty.
Boris Johnson says risk of increased transmission inevitable as England's schools reopen
Q: Now that schools have reopened, do you accept infection rates will go up? What rate might be acceptable?
Johnson says a risk of increased transmission is inevitable.
But he says he thinks schools can be opened up safely.
Harries says new measures, like rapid tests, are available.
And the most vulnerable people have been protected, he says.
Q: What did you think when you heard the Duchess of Sussex’s comment about someone asking how dark Archie’s skin would be? Should that be investigated?
Johnson says he has always had the highest regard for the Queen and the unifying role she plays.
But as for the question, he says he has always had a policy of not commenting on royal matters, and he does not intend to change that today.
Updated
Q: How might vaccine passports work for under-16s?
Johnson says that is a good question. The government is looking at this, he says.
Q: What is the government doing for young people?
Johnson says the most important thing today is to get to get young people back to school.
He says the government wants to provide the maximum possible help for young people looking for work.
He says he does not want to underestimate how tough it has been, particularly for students. They have had nothing like the university experience they would have liked.
Harries ends with the vaccination figures.
The orange bars at the bottom show second doses, she says.
It is “really good news”, she says. But she says we still do not kn know the impact on transmission.
Harries says the seven-day average for deaths is now down to 206 deaths.
As the vaccine starts to have effect among older people, the death rates falls more rapidly than other indicators fall, she says.
Harries says there are still around 10,000 people in hospital. That is still a strain on the NHS, she says.
Harries is presenting the slides.
The first shows the number of people testing positive. The case rate is below 100 per 100,000 people in every region of the country, but it is not uniformly below that.
The national rate is where it was in September. That is still quite a high level. A new wave could take off, she says.
Johnson says today is the first step in what he hopes will be a “cautious but irreversible” step on the roadmap to freedom.
We will continue on the roadmap, he says.
But the return of pupils to school will have an impact on the spread of the virus, he says.
He says it is more vital than ever to follow the rules.
Johnson says this has been a big day, and an emotional day for families up and down the country.
The overwhelming feeling is one of relief, he says.
He thanks teachers who have got schools ready, and who have been teaching remotely.
And he thanks parents for their contribution too.
The burden has dispropotionately fallen on women, he says.
He says the government will help children catch up with lost learning. There will be a programme for national recovery.
Boris Johnson's press conference
Boris Johnson is about to hold a press conference.
He will be with Dr Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer for England.
I will be covering it in full, but much of it is likely to focus on his reaction to the interview by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and for full coverage of that story, do read our separate live blog which is focusing on it.
Updated
Hancock sends junior minister to answer Commons urgent question about NHS pay
A junior health minister has been sent to answer an urgent question aimed at Matt Hancock, the health secretary, about the recommendation to give NHS workers in England a 1% pay rise, PA Media reports. PA says:
Labour’s shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth had asked Hancock to make a statement to the Commons on the pay recommendations.
But Conservative frontbencher Helen Whately was sent to answer for the government.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth questioned why Hancock had sent a junior minister to answer a question on health workers’ pay.
Asking an urgent question on the matter, Ashworth said: “I am grateful for the minister [Helen Whately], but where is the secretary of state? Why isn’t the secretary of state here to defend a Budget that puts up tax for hardworking family and cuts pay for hardworking nurses?
The secretary of state has stood at that despatch box repeatedly waxing lyrical, describing NHS staff as heroes, saying they are the very best of us, and now he is cutting nurses’ pay.
Last summer, when asked by Andrew Marr if nurses deserved a real-terms pay rise, he replied ‘well of course, I want to see people properly rewarded, absolutely’ - and yet now he is cutting nurses’ pay.
A total of 19,812,818 Covid-19 vaccinations took place in England between 8 December and 7 March, according to provisional NHS England data, including first and second doses, which is a rise of 149,241 on the previous day’s figures.
As PA Media reports, of this number, 19,015,497 were the first dose of a vaccine, a rise of 140,108 on the previous day, while 797,321 were a second dose, an increase of 9,133.
Updated
And Public Health Wales has recorded 164 further coronavirus cases, but no new deaths. A week ago today there were 193 new cases, and three deaths.
The rapid COVID-19 surveillance dashboard has been updated
— Public Health Wales (@PublicHealthW) March 8, 2021
💻https://t.co/zpWRYSUbfh
📱 https://t.co/HSclxpZjBh
Read our daily statement here: https://t.co/u6SKHz0zsG pic.twitter.com/fopdlaZ31M
NHS England has recorded 101 further coronavirus hospital deaths. The details are here.
A week ago today the equivalent figure was 127.
No 10 refuses to rule out one-off bonus for NHS staff in England
The Downing Street lobby briefing did not just cover pupils and lateral flow tests. (See 1.23pm.) Here are the other lines that emerged.
- A planned reduction in aid spending may not go to a vote in the Commons, Downing Street has indicated. My colleague Peter Walker has written up the story here.
- No 10 refused to rule out NHS staff in England being given a one-off bonus in addition to their proposed 1% pay rise. The prime minister’s spokesman defended the planned pay rise – but repeatedly refused to rule out staff being topped up with a bonus outside the pay review process. He said:
We have been clear that we think the 1% pay rise is what is affordable. I’m not going to comment on speculation. We’ve set out what we think is affordable, it’s now for the pay review body to look at that and look at the other evidence and come forward with their recommendation.
In Scotland a one-off £500 bonus for health staff was announced in November.
- The spokesman was unable to explain why Lord Frost, the Brexit minister, said in an article yesterday that trade barriers with the EU were inevitable when Boris Johnson claimed in December that, under the trade deal, they would not exist. In his article yesterday, Frost said:
In our negotiations, it was clear right from the start that there was no world in which the EU would eliminate all trade barriers with the UK, unless we accepted the wholesale application of their rules and laws with no say in them.
But on the day the trade deal with the EU was announced in December, Johnson told a No 10 press conference:
There will be no palisade of tariffs on January 1. And there will be no non-tariff barriers to trade.
Asked to defend Johnson’s false claim about the agreement having “no non-tariff barriers to trade”, the spokesman just told reporters to look up what the PM had said when challenged about this in the past. The spokesman did not have the PM’s comments to hand. (At the press conference in December, when ITV’s Robert Peston told the PM he was wrong, Johnson replied by arguing that the deal involved mutual respect for standards on items like plugs.)
- No 10 denied a report in the Daily Mail at the weekend saying that Conservative party funds have met “a large part of the bill” for the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat used by Boris Johnson. The work has reportedly cost around £200,000, and Johnson has reportedly been looking for someone to pay because the government will not pay for work costing more than about £30,000 and Johnson seems unwilling or unable to pay himself. Asked about the Mail story, Allegra Stratton, the PM’s press secretary, said
Conservative party funds are not being used to pay for any refurbishment of the Downing Street estate.
Asked whether the party had encouraged donors to pay for the refurbishment, Stratton said “all of those donations” would be declared through the Electoral Commission, the House of Commons register of members’ interests or in ministerial transparency declarations. And details of the refurbishments would be included in the Cabinet Office annual report, she said.
- Johnson was likely to use the next reshuffle to promote women, Stratton said. Asked about the PM’s record on promoting women, in the light of international women’s day, she said:
We know that there is improvement to come in the years ahead when he – who knows when this comes – when we have promotions to cabinet. He does accept that he would like to improve how representative his cabinet is of the population at large.
She said Johnson described himself as a feminist. But she said that, because of his workload as PM, he was not likely to be taking paternity leave. She said:
He is the prime minister and he works a very long day. He has a huge workload and I don’t think he will be taking paternity leave.
Updated
Kirsty Williams, the Welsh education minister, has said the Welsh government is following Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) advice in not allowing all pupils to return to schools at once like in England.
At a press conference in Cardiff, asked whether she regretted holding back a full return for all pupils in Wales until after Easter, she said:
What’s really important to remember is back in February Sage were very clear in their advice to governments that a phased return to school was critically important in being able to monitor the impact on the pandemic as we move forward.
As PA Media reports, Williams said it had been “wonderful” to see pupils aged between three and seven back in schools in Wales over the last fortnight, and that older primary school pupils and some secondary pupils would be allowed to return from next week.
Updated
From Wes Streeting, a shadow education minister:
What hope is there for schools, parents and pupils when ministers in the DFE can’t get their basic facts right.
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) March 8, 2021
Is there a single day or a single announcement or a single initiative that Gavin Williamson’s bungling team have managed to get through unscathed? Worse than useless. https://t.co/tD3CMaVBJL
Updated
The Department for Education has argued that the line from the Downing Street lobby briefing about pupils being able to give up self-isolation if a lateral flow test says they are positive but a (more accurate) PCR test subsequently says they are negative (see 1.23pm) amounts to a clarification, rather than a U-turn.
It says that the DfE’s position was set out in this document (pdf) last month (see page 31), and that there was a misunderstanding following the coverage at the weekend. (It is a bit more evasive as to why the erroneous interpretation of the rules was backed up by its own minister, Vicky Ford, on the Today programme this morning.)
Updated
Sewage testing can provide early warning of new variants, research says
Routine tests on sewage can act as an early warning system for outbreaks of dangerous variants of coronavirus as vaccines are rolled out across the country, government scientists have concluded.
Tests on sewage samples collected in London from January 2020 tracked the rise and fall of coronavirus infections through successive waves and lockdowns and detected the more transmissible Kent variant before it was known to Public Health England.
Researchers at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) said the findings show how the tests can provide an “early warning” that troubling variants, such as those first spotted in South Africa and Brazil, are spreading in the UK.
Because sewage tests look for the virus in the waste of thousands to millions of people at once, they can potentially reveal outbreaks faster than lab-based tests which rely on people to develop symptoms, come forward for a test, and have their results logged by NHS test and trace.
The scientists looked for coronavirus RNA - its genetic code - in samples collected from the inlet pipe of a major London sewage plant between January 2020 to January 2021. No sign of coronavirus was detected in the first sample in January, but low levels were found in February, days before the first cases were confirmed in the capital.
Levels of the virus in London sewage rose in the 2020 spring wave, fell sharply with the first nationwide lockdown from the end of March, and remained low until early September, when they began to climb again. The first evidence for the more transmissible Kent variant, named B117, was spotted in a sewage sample from early November, when Public Health England were still investigating why infections in Kent had failed to come down despite the November lockdown.
According to the findings, which have yet to be peer reviewed, further sewage samples showed how the Kent variant rapidly became dominant in London, accounting for only 8% of positive samples on 10 November but a staggering 97% on 26 January.
The variants first spotted in South Africa (B1351) and Brazil (P1) are particularly concerning because they contain a mutation called E484K which appears to confer partial resistance to antibodies people gain from vaccination or previous infection in the first wave. Surveillance has since picked up the same mutation in samples of the Kent variant in Bristol and another variant circulating in the north-west.
Updated
Back on Radio 2 Jeremy Vine asks what Labour will do if the independent pay review body backs the government’s proposal to get a pay rise of just 1%.
Sir Keir Starmer says he does not think that will happen. He says the government’s spending plans envisaged staff getting a 2.1% pay rise.
Q: Do you back a strike by nurses?
Starmer says he does not think nurses want a strike to happen.
Q: But if they do go on strike?
Starmer says he does not want to see strikes, especially when the country is still dealing with Covid. Nobody wants to see a strike, he says.
The phone-in is now over.
Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, has had his first dose of vaccine. He is 66.
Very pleased to have my first dose of the coronavirus vaccine. I know some people are worried about having the vaccine but it’s an easy and painless process and will help protect you and others too.
— Mark Drakeford (@fmwales) March 8, 2021
It’s not too late to change your mind either ⬇️https://t.co/tb4hM8Smqe https://t.co/IbIWWkFvqX
Q: What needs to be done to support the 3 million self-employed people excluded from any support?
Starmer says people in this group need support.
He says, when the government was acting in a hurry in spring last year, there might have been reasons why some groups were overlooked. But this has been going on for a year now, he says. He says it is “intolerable”.
Tories benefiting from 'vaccine bounce', says Starmer
Back on Radio 2 Jeremy Vine asks about the recent polls. Government popularity is rising, and yours is falling, he tells Starmer.
Starmer says “there is undoubtedly a vaccine bounce going on”.
He says people come out of vaccination centres with a smile on their face, and anxiety removed.
He claims that during a pandemic people are also inclined to support the government.
But Labour has to do better, he says.
Q: Will you need two terms to win an election?
Starmer says he thinks he can win the next election.
He says he was never going to turn things around in just a year.
UPDATE: Here is the quote. Starmer said:
There is undoubtedly a vaccine bounce going on.
The vaccine rollout is going very well, all tribute to those on the ground. I’ve been in vaccine centre a number of times, including this morning and the NHS, those on the front line doing an incredible job.
And of course, you can feel it: you go into the vaccine centre with anxiety written over your face, and then you see people coming out the other end with a smile, it is an incredible feeling and of course that leads to a bounce I think at the polls.
Updated
Pupils could be released from isolation by PCR test, says No 10 in lateral flow clarification
The Downing Street lobby briefing has just finished. It was unusually long, with a lot of questions focusing on the Duchess of Sussex’s comments about racism in the royal family, and the prime minister’s spokesman largely sidestepping them by saying that Boris Johnson will be able to comment for himself when he holds his press conference later.
But the spokesman did announce an important clarification on the rules relating to pupils who test positive using a lateral flow test.
At the weekend the government said that these pupils would have to self-isolate, even if a subsequent PCR test showed they were negative. (PCR tests are recognised as more accurate.) Vicky Ford, the children’s minister, confirmed that this morning. (See 9.19am.)
But now No 10 is saying that, if a pupil tests positive in a lateral flow test administered at home, then if they do subsequently test negative with a PCR test, they can return to school. The spokesman said:
If a child takes lateral flow at home, so not in a controlled environment, then if they receive a positive, they will then receive a PCR test. If the PCR is positive, the child needs to continue to isolate at home. If the PCR is negative, then the child can go back to school.
This brings the rules relating to self-isolation and lateral flow tests for pupils into line with the equivalent rules for adults. The rules differentiate between lateral flow tests conducted in a controlled environment (where someone is there to ensure the process is being carried out properly) and lateral flow tests being conducted at home (where errors are more likely).
UPDATE: The original post, and headline, described this as a U-turn, but I’ve changed that to “clarification” in response to the DfE saying that the rules have not changed; they were just misunderstood (including, arguably, by their own minister). See 2.10pm.
Updated
Q: Do you think parents should be allowed to say pupils don’t have to wear a mask?
Starmer says he has been visiting a school in east London where most pupils are wearing masks. The system is working, he says. He says he would encourage pupils to wear masks.
Starmer is back.
Q: How are you going to increase spending if you want no tax rises and no cuts?
Starmer says we need a two-year burst to get people back to work. He says tax rises would undermine that.
Starmer says he feels very strongly that the economic focus in the next year or two needs to be on growth and recovery. That is why he is opposed to tax rises now, he says.
Starmer is speaking on a poor-quality phone line. Vine is now playing some music while his team try to set Starmer up with a better line.
Vine asks about the proposed 1% pay rise for NHS staff.
Starmer says that was an insult.
Keir Starmer's Radio 2 phone-in
Sir Keir Starmer is taking part in a phone-in on Jeremy Vine’s Radio 2 programme.
Vine starts by asking about the Duchess of Sussex’s interview.
Starmer says what Meghan raised about race is “very, very serious”. Too many people are still suffering from it, he says.
Q: Does the Palace have to say something?
Starmer says: “I would hope and expect that the Palace will react to this.”
All secondary school pupils will be offered voluntary rapid at-home Covid testing kits later this month, John Swinney, Scotland’s education secretary and deputy first minister, has announced.
Swinney told the Scottish government’s regular Covid briefing said the programme would be expanded after the Easter holidays beyond the current programme of offering twice-weekly tests to all staff and all senior phase pupils in S4 to S6.
He confirmed the home testing kits were rapid lateral flow tests, which are less reliable than lab-tested PCR kits; anyone who recorded a positive home test would be expected to take a PCR test to ensure it was not a false positive.
Swinney announced 13 deaths had been registered in Scotland since Friday, of people with positive Covid tests, taking the total under that measure to 7,422. However, the number of patients in intensive care had fallen again, by 2 to 59 people.
Swinney also echoed Nicola Sturgeon’s condemnation of rowdy fans of Rangers Football Club who defied the lockdown by massing in large numbers in central Glasgow on Sunday to celebrate the club’s first Scottish premiership title in a decade. There were 28 arrests, and injuries reported amongst police. (See 10.47am.)
Describing their conduct as “absolutely disgraceful” and “shameful”, Swinney also attacked Rangers for failing to demand their fans stay at home and observe the lockdown.
He said the government and Police Scotland had spoken to the club twice recently to urge it to instruct fans to stay at home. He went on:
It is a matter of profound regret that that didn’t happen. The Scottish government will be making its extreme disappointment about this clear to the team management.
Updated
Peter Weir, the education minister in the Northern Ireland executive, has expressed hope that all primary school children could return to school before Easter, PA Media reports. PA says:
Weir visited Springfield primary school in west Belfast on Monday morning as P1-P3 pupils across Northern Ireland returned to the classroom.
As it stands those children will return to remote learning on 22 March for the week prior to the Easter holidays. On that date post primary pupils in years 12-14 will go back to school.
No date for the return of other primary and post-primary pupils to classes has been agreed by the Stormont executive.
Weir said his preference would be for all primary pupils to return by the end of March, prior to the Easter holidays
“It would be great for instance if we could get all our primary school children back before Easter, that will ultimately be in the hands of the executive,” he said.
Updated
In a speech this morning to the Onward thinktank Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, defended his party’s plan to hold a no confidence vote in Nicola Sturgeon in the Scottish parliament later this week. But he also went further, proposing a series of reforms to strengthen democratic accountability in the parliament. Ross said:
It is time to shatter the comfortable illusion that Scottish democracy is superior and accept that it can and should be improved. That we look at practice elsewhere, and that includes even at Westminster, for inspiration.
In particular, he proposed:
- Separating the roles of chief legal adviser to the government and chief prosecutor, which are currently both held by the lord advocate.
- Ensuring proceedings in Holyrood are covered by full parliamentary privilege.
- Introducing elections for select committee chairs at Holyrood.
- Introducing a recall system for MSPs.
- Giving a committee the power to uphold the ministerial code, not the first minister. On this point, Ross said:
I believe that this scandal has shown where the Scottish government is accountable to only itself.
It is left to the first minister to uphold the ministerial code and take decisions on the scrutiny of ministerial behaviour.
So to make this process independent, we would propose that responsibility for the scrutiny of ministerial behaviour be given to the standards committee, just as they report on the behaviour of opposition and backbench MSPs.
There should not be a separate process for government ministers.
Ross made this argument even though his party leader at Westminster, Boris Johnson, has firmly resisted any pressure to abandon his control of the UK government’s ministerial code procedure. Johnson did have an independent adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Alex Allan, but Allan resigned in November after Johnson refused to sack Priti Patel for breaking the code. Allan has not yet been replaced.
Updated
Here is a picture gallery of pupils returning to school in England.
Boris Johnson will hold a press conference at No 10 this afternoon, Downing Street has said. It will be at 4pm, not 5pm, the usual time for No 10 briefings.
Unemployment for recent graduates reached 12% in the third quarter of last year, according to an ONS report out today. This was still lower than the unemployment rate for 16 to 24-year-olds generally (which was 13.6% in Q3 2020).
The ONS says recent graduate unemployment always peaks in Q3, which is when students have just graduated and may not have found a job. But last year’s peak was the highest for three years, it says.
John Kerry, the US climate envoy, met Boris Johnson this morning during his visit to Europe, Downing Street said. As PA Media reports, Kerry is visiting London, Brussels and Paris ahead of Joe Biden’s leaders’ summit on climate in April and the UK-hosted UN Cop26 meeting in November.
Updated
To mark international women’s day, Boris Johnson has paid tribute to some of the leading women involved in the UK’s vaccination programme.
This International Women’s Day I want to pay tribute to some of the leading figures in the UK’s vaccination programme.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) March 8, 2021
Their ingenuity, dedication and hard work is an inspiration to all of us.
#InternationalWomensDay #IWD2021#ExtraordinaryWomen pic.twitter.com/CDJWpS5RUX
Prof Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, told Times Radio this morning that he thought school reopening in England would not push R, the reproduction number, above 1. He explained:
Sage has concluded that reopening schools adds probably about 0.2 or thereabouts to the R number.
We know that reopening schools will increase transmission, but we should be able to keep the R below one - and, as you’ll recall, that’s the key thing to stop the runaway increase of infections.
It’s very plausible, in fact I think very likely, that we will keep the R below one with schools open with these mitigations in place.
And I think the key thing is that children themselves, and parents, don’t think: ‘The schools are open, we can relax, we can mix outside of school’ - in a sense, come out of lockdown around the school opening.
The modelling - and I think the government has been clear on this - is about we can reopen schools safely if everything else stays locked down over the next three weeks.
According to the latest estimate from Sage, published on Friday, R in England is between 0.7 and 0.9.
Updated
On BBC Breakfast this morning Prof Calum Semple, professor of child health at the University of Liverpool and a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said that it was said it was “inevitable that we will see a rise in cases” as schools go back today. But he said it was not so important if the reproduction number, R, went up slightly. He said what mattered more was “the absolute number of cases going to hospital and needing intensive care”.
In the Times today (paywall) Tom Whipple, the paper’s science editor, makes this argument at greater length, suggesting that R is on its way out as a key measure. Here’s an extract.
Privately, figures in government believe that R will get very close to 1, and quite likely tip past it. But the key measure will be whether coronavirus is filling up our hospitals, not whether it is filling up our testing laboratories.
It is not completely the case that R won’t matter. We know that a big outbreak still has the possibility to cause a lot of deaths. But going a little above 1? That’s different. Spring will catch up to push it down. So too will vaccines — there’s a lot of immunity building in the vaccinated, chipping away at R. We can live with a bit of growth.
There will be an urgent question in the Commons at 3.35pm on the government’s proposal to give NHS staff a 1% pay rise, Labour says.
🚨 Important UQ at 3.35pm@JonAshworth to ask @MattHancock to make a statement on the Department of Health and Social Care’s recommendations on NHS staff pay
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) March 8, 2021
Police Scotland arrested 28 people after thousands of Rangers fans gathered in Glasgow on Sunday to celebrate winning the Scottish Premiership, PA Media reports. PA says:
A further seven people were issued with fixed penalty notices or will be reported to the procurator fiscal.
Fans packed into George Square and gathered outside Ibrox Stadium after Rangers took their first top-flight title in 10 years.
The force said action was taken for offences including assaulting police officers, breaching coronavirus regulations, disorder, use of flares and sectarian breaches of the peace.
Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, said the “infuriating and disgraceful” scenes could jeopardise plans to ease the coronavirus restrictions and urged Rangers to ask people to go home.
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Vaccine hesitancy highest among black people, the young, the low-paid and parents of under-4s, ONS says
The Office for National Statistics has published a report on vaccine hesitancy (reluctance or unwillingness to get vaccinated). Here are the key findings.
- Overall around 9% of adults in Britain report vaccine hesitancy. This is defined as either deciding not to have the vaccine, or someone not saying they were likely to have it if offered. Some 91% of adults express a positive view towards the vaccine.
- But 44% of black adults expressed vaccine hesitancy. People from ethnic minority groups are more likely than white people to express vaccine hesitancy, but this is particularly marked among black people, whose rates of vaccine hesitancy are twice those of other ethnic minority groups.
Although still high, this 44% figure is much lower than the 72% of black people saying they were unlikely to get vaccinated in research quoted in a Sage paper released in January. That research was based on a survey carried out in November. The ONS data is based on a survey conducted between 13 January and 7 February.
- Younger people are more likely to feel vaccine hesitancy than older people, with 17% of 16- to 29-year-olds in this category, the ONS survey says.
- Parents with young children are more likely to feel vaccine hesitancy than parents with older children, the ONS says. For parents with a dependent child under the age of four, vaccine hesitancy is 16%. For parents with an older dependent child it is lower, and for non-parents or parents not living with a dependent child it is just 8%.
- The low-paid are more likely to feel vaccine hesitancy than the high-paid, the ONS says. Among people with a gross income of up to £10,000 a year, vaccine hesitancy is 14%. Among people earning more than £40,000, it’s 5%.
Although the debate on vaccine hesitancy has focused primarily on ethnicity, the ONS report suggests that the variation by age is even more striking. It says a black person is more than six time as likely as a white person to express vaccine hesitancy. But it says someone aged 16 to 29 is more than 17 times as likely to express vaccine hesitancy as someone aged 80 or over. (Among the over-80s, vaccine hesitancy is just 1%.)
Tim Vizard, a public policy analyst at the ONS, said:
Over the past three months, we’ve seen people become increasingly positive about the Covid-19 vaccines, with over nine in 10 adults saying they would have it if offered, or having already had it. Of those who are hesitant about receiving the vaccine, it’s younger and black adults who are most likely to say this, with concerns around side effects, long term effects and how well the vaccine works being the most common reasons.
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Minister defends pupil isolation after rapid test results as schools return in England
Good morning. Schools in England are reopening fully from today, and secondary school pupils will be asked to take regular lateral flow tests (the ones that give rapid results). But there is controversy over a plan to require pupils who test positive to self-isolate, even if they subsequently test negative with a PCR test. PCR tests, which take longer to produce results because they are processed in a laboratory, are more accurate. As the official NHS England advice makes clear, other people who test positive with a lateral flow test administered at home can get released from self-isolation if they test negative with a PCR test.
In interviews this morning Vicky Ford, the children’s minister, defended the plan for schools. She told the Today programme:
The first priority is to make sure that we keep the Covid out of the classrooms with these regular tests. The chances of the lateral flow test giving a false positive are actually very low ...
The really important thing here is to make sure that we can keep schools open and minimise the risk of having Covid in the classrooms, and that is why if people have had the test that shows that they have got Covid through the lateral flow test, we should not take the risk of having that child in the classroom.
She also referred to an interview (pdf) given by Dr Susan Hopkins from Public Health England on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday as evidence that the chances of a lateral flow test delivering a “false positive” (a positive result for someone who in fact does not have coronavirus) are very low. Hopkins said:
We’ve looked very carefully at the evidence that’s emerging from the tests that have been delivered at home and in the testing sites over the last eight weeks, and the actual validation of those tests in real-life scenarios suggests that it’s 99.9 per cent, at least, specific, which means that the risk of false positives is extremely low, less than one in a thousand.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The ONS publishes reports on vaccine hesitancy among different ethnic groups, and on job prospects for graduates during the Covid crisis.
10am: Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, gives a speech on the economic outlook to the Resolution Foundation thinktank.
10.30am: Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, gives a speech to the Onward thinktank.
11am: Anas Sarwar, the new Scottish Labour leader, holds a press conference.
12pm: Downing Street is expected to hold its daily lobby briefing.
12.15pm: Kirsty Williams, the Welsh government’s education minister, holds a briefing.
12.15pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is expected to hold a coronavirus briefing.
1pm: Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Jeremy Vine on Radio 2.
3.30pm: The Office for Budget Responsibility gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the budget.
5pm: Downing Street may 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.
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.
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