Summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments today:
- Three-quarters of adults in the UK are estimated to have received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, health agency figures show.
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Pupils will be offered an extra 100m hours of tuition under post-pandemic catch-up plans unveiled today – but the government faced immediate criticism of the £1.4bn programme, with its own tsar warning “more will be needed”.
- The £1.4bn announced for the catch-up programme for pupils in England is “pitiful”, a school leaders’ union has said.
- Gavin Williamson suggested more money will be “required” as the government tackles lost pupil learning during the pandemic.
- A total of 107 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 21 May mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate, according to the Office for National Statistics – the lowest number since the week ending September 11 2020.
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The prospect of care home workers being required to get vaccinated against Covid-19 has moved a step closer, with a crucial endorsement from the UK’s human rights watchdog.
- The proportion of deaths involving coronavirus in England and Wales is at its lowest level for more than eight months, figures show.
- Boris Johnson has said there is still “nothing in the data at the moment that means we cannot go ahead with step four” of lifting coronavirus restrictions.
- Testing for Covid-19 will be stepped up in Blackburn with Darwen as health chiefs hope to control its rising infection rates “in the next week or so”, reports PA.
- Half a billion doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine have been released for supply globally, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said.
- The government has started commercial negotiations with AstraZeneca to secure a “variant vaccine” adapted to tackle the variant first identified in South Africa, Matt Hancock said.
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The government said a further 12 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Wednesday, bringing the UK total to 127,794.
We are closing this blog now. Thanks so much for joining me today and for all the comments. I’ll be back again tomorrow.
Several Greek islands, Malta and parts of the Caribbean could be added to the green travel list on Thursday, according to an industry expert.
Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, said a number of popular holiday destinations “really deserve” to be moved to the low-risk tier.
Holidaymakers returning to the UK from green locations are not required to self-isolate, and only need to take one post-arrival coronavirus test.
Charles told the PA news agency he expects additions to the list to include the Greek islands of Zante, Rhodes and Kos, the Caribbean islands of Grenada and Antigua, plus Malta and Finland.
The transition of those locations to green status would be “a boost” to the struggling travel industry, he said.
We need to see the government widening the number of green destinations to help the sector recover and to help protect jobs and livelihoods, which the prime minister promised.
It would be a boost to see those added. I still think we’re going to get the majority of European countries added at the end of June, but it would be an encouraging step forward.
Assessments are based on a range of factors, including the proportion of a population that has been vaccinated, rates of infection, emerging new variants, and access to reliable scientific data and genomic sequencing.
Portugal is the only viable major tourist destination currently on the green list.
Charles said he would be “surprised” if Spain’s Balearic Islands – including Ibiza, Majorca and Menorca – are added in Thursday’s update.
“They’re hugely popular and I’m not sure the government is ready to encourage so much travel at the moment.”
He also warned that Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia could be added to the red list, which means people returning to the UK are required to spend 11 nights in a quarantine hotel.
He said:
There are clearly signs of increased infection in many parts of Asia at the moment and I think the government will be keen to clamp down on those as soon as they can.
Travellers returning to the UK from an amber list location – which includes popular hotspots such as Spain, France, Italy and Greece – must quarantine at home for 10 days and take two post-arrival tests.
The Government has urged people against non-essential travel to amber countries.
Boris Johnson said the Government will “wait and see” what the recommendations of the Joint Biosecurity Centre are before announcing changes to the travel lists.
He went on:
We are going to try and allow people to travel as I know many people want to, but we’ve got to be cautious.
We’ve got to continue to put countries on the red list, on the amber list, when that is necessary.
We will have no hesitation in moving countries from the green list to the amber list to the red list if we have to do so.
The priority is to continue the vaccine rollout to protect the people of this country.
Boris Johnson has said there are currently no clear signals that he needs to scrap or delay plans to lift all legal restrictions on social contact in England in a matter of weeks, but he admitted that data on how effective vaccines will be at preventing a third wave was ambiguous.
Despite calls from some scientists for the government to push back the planned final stage of unlocking on 21 June, the prime minister suggested he saw no reason yet to deviate from the roadmap.
He did, however, urge people to remain “so cautious” because the infection rate was rising again.
He said ministers had known that the number of cases would start to increase again after significant freedoms were restored on 17 May, allowing people to gather in groups of six or two households indoors and up to 30 outdoors.
Speaking during a visit to a school on Wednesday – his first public appearance since marrying Carrie Johnson over the weekend – Johnson said scientists needed “a little bit longer” to figure out just how much protection the vaccines were providing against a new surge.
He said:
There, I’m afraid, the data is just still ambiguous. So every day we’re having long sessions, interrogating all the data, looking at all the various models.
And the best the scientists can say at the moment in their guidance to us is that we just need to give it a little bit longer.
I’m sorry that’s frustrating for people. I know that people want a clear answer about the way ahead for 21 June, but at the moment we’ve just got to wait a little bit longer.
Read the full story here:
UK records 4,330 new cases
The government said a further 12 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Wednesday, bringing the UK total to 127,794.
The government also said that, as of 9am on Wednesday, there had been a further 4,330 lab-confirmed cases in the UK.
Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have now been 153,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, PA news reports.
Updated
Last month, the Guardian reported that Scotland’s incoming education secretary was being urged to take immediate action over so-called “ghost exams” – where pupils face high-stakes testing up to three times a day with none of the usual support – as high school assessments fell into chaos for the second year running.
Although teachers were told to use their professional judgment to assess the grades their pupils should receive, Scotland’s exam board, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), has asked for evidence to support these estimates and issued question papers that must be answered “under closed-book conditions” – while insisting that these do not amount to exams.
Shirley-Anne Somerville, who is now in post as Scottish education secretary, said she took “very seriously” the anxiety and concern raised by young people, parents and teachers about the model being used, but insisted it was “the fairest possible”.
Critics in the sector reacted angrily, in particular because there seems to be no consideration given to individual circumstances, in particular after last year’s model was found to actively discriminate against poorer children, resulting in a government u-turn over grading.
Scottish Labour said that her statement failed to answer the key questions on pupil support, new evidence and, crucially, any avenue to have personal circumstances taken into account.
Scottish Labour’s education spokesperson, Michael Marra, said:
At the centre of this are individual pupils left on their own to decide whether to contest the grades given to them. To do so would be to question their school, the SQA and the government that set the process.
They would risk being downgraded if they speak up. No allowance will be given for personal circumstances faced by pupils.
We know that the most disadvantaged young people have been worst affected. They are also those most likely to require the support of their school rather than disputing the school’s conclusions.
Read our previous story on this here:
Updated
The Green party has named a rugby league international as its candidate in the Batley and Spen byelection on 1 July.
Ross Peltier, 29, plays for the Doncaster Dons and has represented the Jamaica international team nine times. Peltier, who lives in the constituency in what he describes as a “humble terrace house”, said he had a “profile of sorts in an area which holds rugby league as its beating heart”.
“I feel I can bridge the gap with the working person who has been a single party voter all his life to the Green party,” he added.
Batley and Spen is currently held by Labour, who have selected Kim Leadbeater, the sister of the area’s former MP Jo Cox.
Tracy Brabin, who succeeded Cox after she was killed in 2016, was re-elected with a slim majority of 3,525 votes in 2019 and won the West Yorkshire mayoralty last month. The Greens came fifth in the 2019 election, with 1.3% of the vote.
George Galloway, former MP for Bradford West and Bethnal Green and Bow, announced last week that he intends to stand with the Workers Party of Britain, stating his aim was to oust Keir Starmer as Labour leader.
The Conservatives have selected Leeds councillor Ryan Stephenson as their candidate, the Yorkshire party has chosen local engineer Corey Robinson and the Lib Dems, who came fourth at the last election, have selected TV producer Jo Conchie.
Paul Halloran, an independent candidate who came third with 6,432 votes in 2019, has not yet confirmed whether he is standing. Last week he posted a photo of himself with actor Laurence Fox, who received 1.88% of the vote in London’s mayoral race.
Updated
A group of police officers are being investigated by their force after being found at a party in contravention of Covid-19 rules.
Police were called to the gathering at a property in Hove, East Sussex, on 15 May, where the off-duty officers were found inside, PA news reports.
A spokeswoman for Sussex police said:
Police officers were called to an address in Hove, following reports of a gathering inside on Saturday May 15 at 8.46pm.
They entered and found a number of off-duty officers present.
This incident, in breach of current lockdown restrictions, is being investigated by the force’s professional standards department.
Chief Superintendent Nick May said:
We take Covid-related breaches very seriously and we are actively investigating this matter.
The officers involved have not been suspended while the investigation continues.
Updated
Matt Hancock said it was important to analyse the effects of the vaccine on cases of coronavirus and hospital admissions.
The health secretary said at the press conference at the Jenner Institute in Oxford:
What really matters and is hardest to judge right now is how much the vaccine has severed that link.
I know that everyone was so glad about the data published yesterday, we had the first day in which no deaths were reported, but what the vaccine does is sever that link.
That is its primary, not its only, but its primary job, and we watch that incredibly carefully.
We know the vaccines work, the question is the degree to which they work and making sure we keep cases low enough so we can minimise hospitalisations as set out in the road map.
We are vigilant and we look at it all the time.
Asked by PA Media whether vaccine passport plans for mass gatherings were being scrapped, Matt Hancock said:
One of the parts of step four is to set out four reviews, one of those is into certification.
Being able to certify that you’ve had a vaccine is going to be necessary for international travel because some countries have already set out that they require proof that you’ve been vaccinated, and that means being able to prove with authority that you’ve had one of the jabs and confidence in which jab accepted for that proof – which is a matter for each individual country.
We’ve provided the ability to show that through the NHS app, so we’re putting that certification in place where we know it will be needed.
When it comes to using certification for domestic purposes, that is the review that Michael Gove is leading, and we’ll come forward with the conclusions of it soon.
Updated
Asked if the government was considering keeping some restrictions such as mask wearing and work-from-home guidance after 21 June, Matt Hancock said further decisions would be made in the coming weeks.
He told a press conference at the Jenner Institute in Oxford:
There is nothing in the data to suggest we are definitively off track but it is too early to make the decision about June 21, step four in the road map.
We’ll make that decision based on more data in the next week to 10 days, ahead of June 14, as we’ve set out.
Updated
The health secretary was asked after his speech about what happened in care homes at the start of the pandemic.
He said:
I think the best approach is to take responsibility for all things that have happened and, as health secretary, I do that for all the decisions I have been responsible for.
The vaccine programme is an incredibly important programme that we’ve learned the lessons from in the same way that we’ve learned the lessons throughout the crisis – lessons for how best to protect people and we’ve updated the rules all the way through, and we’ve been very open about that.
That’s a very important part about how you handle an unprecedented situation.
Updated
The government has started commercial negotiations with AstraZeneca to secure a “variant vaccine” adapted to tackle the variant first identified in South Africa, Matt Hancock said.
In a speech delivered at the Jenner Institute in Oxford, he said:
There is yet more to do, the work isn’t over yet – we’re still procuring all the time and planning what we need to keep this country safe, including new vaccines specifically targeted at variants of concern.
I can tell you today that we’ve started commercial negotiations with AstraZeneca to secure a variant vaccine – future supplies of the Oxford /AstraZeneca vaccine that have been adapted to tackle the B.1.351 variant first identified in South Africa.
Once again, we’re leading the way and backing projects with potential, so we can keep our vaccination programme one step ahead of the virus and protect the progress that we’ve all made.
Matt Hancock made a thinly-veiled dig at the SNP who want to break Scotland away from rest of the UK.
Speaking at the Jenner Institute in Oxford ahead of the G7 health ministers’ meeting, the health secretary said the union has “saved lives” when rolling out the Covid vaccine.
He noted that the country is “safer” as a result of the union.
Hancock is more explicit on the strength of the Union re vaccine rollout than most of his Cabinet colleagues:
— Joe Pike (@joepike) June 2, 2021
‘The Union has saved lives. And we are safer as a result.’
Describes regular group meetings with health ministers of Scotland/Wales/NI as ‘a bit like group therapy’.
Hancock apraises the "strength of the union" in the vaccine prog.
— Rachel Wearmouth (@REWearmouth) June 2, 2021
"This vaccination programme is for the whole UK."
He adds: "The virus doesn't respect admin boundaries so I was determined to overcome political differences so we could deliver for citizens across the country."
He told a press conference:
We negotiated and bought vaccines for the whole country, we allocated them according to need and we worked with the NHS, devolved administrations and local councils everywhere, and we called upon the logistical heft of the British Armed Forces to help get them into arms.
This didn’t happen by accident. The devolved administrations are run by different political parties and although health is devolved, the virus doesn’t respect political boundaries.
I was determined to overcome political differences so we could deliver for citizens across the country wherever they live.
He continued:
Like everyone I have come to love Zoom, but it wasn’t easy getting this UK-wide approach and right at the start last March I went to see each of the devolved leaders face to face.
It was so important that we got on the same page about the importance of this project.
So although life was pretty hectic, last March I took 24 hours to fly to Edinburgh, to Belfast, to Cardiff. That 24 hours has proved invaluable in strengthening those relationships and it’s one of the most useful 24 hours in the pandemic, and since then we’ve had a call every single week, the four of us, and, frankly, sometimes it’s been like group therapy.
Half a billion doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine have been released for supply globally, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said.
Speaking at the Jenner Institute in Oxford, he said:
The Oxford vaccine, developed by brilliant science here in Oxford, linked with AstraZeneca’s industrial might, backed by the support of the UK government, together, make it available at cost, this is in my view the greatest gift that this nation could give the world during this pandemic.
A vaccine that’s available at cost – with no charge but intellectual property – and that because it can be stored simply offers hope for the developing world.
So, as well as the money that we’ve donated – giving half a billion pounds to Covax (the global vaccine sharing facility) – we’ve also given the world the vaccine, which makes up 96% of those Covax doses.
As of today, I can confirm that over half a billion doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine have now been released for supply globally, the majority of them in low and middle income countries.
As of today, I can confirm that over half a billion doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine have now been released for supply globally, the majority of them in low & middle income countries.
— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) June 2, 2021
THANK YOU to everyone who made this happen. pic.twitter.com/7NeWvJN3Cs
Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirms that as of today, over half a billion doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been released for supply globally, the majority in low and middle income countries.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 2, 2021
Follow live: https://t.co/Po103qKebs pic.twitter.com/FIPh3gSOYg
Updated
Matt Hancock said that Britons “love queuing” and there was “nothing more upsetting than people jumping the queue”.
He also also talked about how Contagion, the 2011 American thriller film about the spread of a virus, inspired him to think of how important the vaccine rollout would be and how it was designed.
Speaking at the Jenner Institute in Oxford, Hancock said:
We started early on how we could make access to the vaccine fair.
I know that a few eyebrows were raised when I said that the film Contagion shaped my thinking about our vaccine programme – I should reassure Sir John Bell that it wasn’t my primary source of advice – but when I watched that film, a penny did drop for me: not just that the vaccine would be our way out of the pandemic, but that the power of the vaccine would be so great that we would have to think very hard about who to protect and in what order.
I knew that some of the most difficult moments of the pandemic would not be before the vaccine was approved, but afterwards when the scramble for vaccines have begun.
He added:
We Brits love queuing and there’s nothing more upsetting than someone jumping the queue.
So, again, we started planning early to make sure that this was fair and we spent time preparing for how to organise the rollout in as fair a way as possible.
The clinically advised prioritisation for getting vaccines in arms has been critical, I believe, in securing trust in the programme overall because it’s helped demonstrate that the system is fair.
So, we acted early to reassure people that in the finest tradition of the values of the NHS, vaccines will be given according to need, not ability to pay – whether you’re the prime minister, or Premier League footballer or the future king of England. You have to wait your turn, just like everyone else.
Updated
Speaking at the Jenner Institute in Oxford ahead of the G7 health ministers’ meeting, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said he had been told it would take at least five years to develop a coronavirus vaccine at the start of the pandemic.
I specifically remember a then meek and timid professor turning to me when I asked how fast this could possibly be done.
He said that if everything went right then the very best we could hope for would be 12 to 18 months.
Who would have thought that just 11 months later we’d be the first country in the world with a clinically authorised vaccine and that professor Jonathan Van-Tam would be turning down Strictly.
He also called Chris Whitty a “vaccine hero” in the speech.
Matt Hancock calls CMO Chris Whitty a "vaccine hero" & says Simon Stevens & the NHS deserve every plaudit they've had for the rollout & response to Covid-19. pic.twitter.com/2Wdaf6W9x9
— Rachel Wearmouth (@REWearmouth) June 2, 2021
Updated
Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, has described the latest milestones in the vaccination rollout as an “incredible achievement”, with three-quarters of adults in the UK having received a first dose and 50% of adults in England having been given both jabs.
He added:
We know vaccines are breaking the chain between infection rates, hospital admissions and death. But we also know two doses are better than one, particularly in our fight against the Delta (India) variant.
So while there’s a lot to celebrate, we’ve still got a way to go before people have had both jabs. We also know it takes three weeks for doses to be fully effective.
We urge everyone to get their jabs when they’re offered them.
Updated
A total of 39,585,665 first doses of the Covid-19 vaccines have now been delivered since the vaccination roll-out began almost six months ago.
This is the equivalent of 75.2% of all people aged 18 and over, meaning three-quarters of adults in the UK are estimated to have received their first dose, PA Media reports.
In Wales, 2,152,709 first doses have been given, the equivalent of 85.3% of the adult population.
This is well ahead of the other three nations of the UK, with England on 74.7% (33,085,145 first doses), Scotland on 74.1% (3,286,261 first doses) and Northern Ireland on 73.1% (1,061,550 first doses).
The latest figures have been published by the UK’s four health agencies. They also show that an estimated 49.5% of UK adults are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, including half (50.0%) of adults in England.
In Scotland 47.5% of adults are estimated to have received both doses, along with 46.5% in Northern Ireland and 45.1% in Wales.
Updated
Boris Johnson said the government will have “no hesitation” in moving countries around the red, amber and green lists of travel restrictions.
Asked whether there may be more countries added to the green list soon, where there are no requirements to quarantine on returning to the UK, the prime minister said:
You’ve got to wait and see what the Joint Biosecurity Centre say and what the recommendations are about travel.
We’re going to try ... to allow people to travel, as I know that many people want to, but we’ve got to be cautious and we’ve got to continue to put countries on the red list, on the amber list, when that is necessary.
I want you to know we will have no hesitation in moving countries from the green list to the amber list to the red list, if we have to do so. The priority is to continue the vaccine rollout, to protect the people of this country.
Three quarters of adults in UK have had first dose of Covid vaccine
Three-quarters of adults in the UK are estimated to have received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, health agency figures show.
UK Covid vaccine confidence has been “sky high” in Britain, according to the health secretary, Matt Hancock.
Addressing the first ever Global Vaccine Confidence Summit, Hancock said: “Across the UK confidence in the vaccine programme has been sky high.
“We continue to top the list of places where people are willing to take, or have taken, a Covid vaccine – around nine in 10 of us.”
He added: “I am aware that this isn’t a vaccine world cup – different nations don’t compete for one prize, we know that when everyone is safe we’re all going to be the winners.”
Hancock added that when vaccine confidence in one country “takes a hit” then “word can spread, fake news travels fast”.
“Vaccine confidence is an international challenge and one that takes international action,” he added. “The speed of misinformation is a deadly threat.”
Updated
Testing for Covid-19 will be stepped up in Blackburn with Darwen as health chiefs hope to control its rising infection rates “in the next week or so”, reports PA.
The east Lancashire borough has recently overtaken Bolton as England’s top Covid hotspot area as cases rise in parts of the north-west region amid concerns over the spread of the Indian variant.
The rate in Blackburn with Darwen stands at 436.2 cases per 100,000 people, with 653 new cases in the seven days to 28 May. This is up from 303.3 in the seven days to 21 May.
People without symptoms who live, work or study in areas with BB1 and BB2 postcodes in Blackburn with Darwen are asked to take a Covid PCR test at any of its five new mobile testing units.
Surge testing teams from the council are also knocking on doors in some areas of Blackburn to hand out PCR test kits, with staff returning later to collect.
The borough’s director of public health, Prof Dominic Harrison, said: “We think that Blackburn with Darwen is around seven to 10 days behind Bolton in terms of rising rates, so it’s encouraging to see their infection rate starting to decline.
With all of the engagement work and surge testing that we are doing in the areas of Blackburn where we first identified cases of the variant of concern, we are hopeful that in the next week or so we can take control of our case rates too.”
However, the Blackburn MP Kate Hollern has called on the government to provide the increased numbers of doses required to halt the spread among 17 and 18-year-olds.
In Blackburn with Darwen 17 and 18-year-olds have the highest case rate of all age groups - more than 1,050 cases per 100,000.
— Kate Hollern MP (@Kate_HollernMP) June 2, 2021
Health Secretary, we need tens of thousands more vaccines and a Twickenham-style programme this week.
Updated
Luke Sibieta, a research fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has criticised the government’s commitment to school catch-up funding, saying other countries were being “much more ambitious” than the UK.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Sibieta said:
The £1.4bn announced today adds to the £1.7bn that has already been announced, making for a total of about £3.1bn on education catch-up.
A lot of that now is focused on the national tutoring programme, which (Sir) Kevan Collins talked about as being quite an important part of education recovery but it is clearly a lot less than the £10-15 billion that Collins was proposing for a full-scale education recovery, which would incorporate much bigger elements.
The Biden administration in the US has proposed about £1.22bn – about £1,600 per pupil, over five times more than we’re spending in the UK.
The Netherlands is going even further and has allocated over €8bn, which amounts to over £2,500 per pupil, so there are countries around the world going much further and being much more ambitious.”
Updated
Johnson says data still too ambiguous to know whether enough are protected by jabs to allow 21 June opening
Boris Johnson has said there is still “nothing in the data at the moment that means we cannot go ahead with step four” of lifting coronavirus restrictions.
“But we’ve got to be so cautious,” the prime minister added, as he said infection rates were increasing.
“We always knew that was going to happen,” he said, adding: “What we need to work out is to what extent the vaccination programme has protected enough of us, particularly the elderly and vulnerable, against a new surge, and there I’m afraid the data is still ambiguous.
“The best the scientists can say at the moment is we just need to give it a little bit longer.”
Updated
Lockdown reading has helped the Harry Potter publisher, Bloomsbury, to its third profit upgrade of the year after a 22% surge in annual pre-tax profits.
The company said people had “rediscovered the joy of reading” during the coronavirus pandemic, pushing its sales 14% higher to £185m in the 12 months to the end of February.
Bloomsbury performed significantly better than the wider UK publishing market, which recorded a 2% rise in sales during 2020, according to data from the Publishers Association.
The company said fantasy, escapism, social inclusion and cookery all sold well during the pandemic.
New bestsellers included two books by the American fantasy author Sarah J Maas about female warriors, including A Court of Silver Flames, as well as the fantasy novel Piranesi by the British author Susanna Clarke.
Other bestsellers included Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge, and Humankind by Rutger Bregman.
The Harry Potter books by JK Rowling continue to attract new readers, almost a quarter of a century after their first publication. Bloomsbury said sales of the series about the boy wizard rose 7% during the past year.
The pandemic reignited many people’s interest in reading, said Bloomsbury’s chief executive, Nigel Newton, and he expects this to continue even as lockdown restrictions ease.
He said in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
People have developed a new habit and one where they have rediscovered the joy of reading, and will cling on to that even as the clamour of other ways of spending their time re-emerge.
Read more here:
Updated
Airlines are overlooking the mental health and wellbeing of pilots and other aviation workers in their scramble to get planes flying again, according to researchers.
Many aviation workers experienced anxiety, stress and depression during Covid-19 lockdowns, but they report feeling discouraged from acknowledging problems or seeking help, creating potential safety hazards and health problems.
The warning this week from the Lived Experience and Wellbeing Project – a Trinity College Dublin hub that studies aviation worker wellbeing and the impact on performance and flight safety – came as airlines across the world increase flights and start rehiring pilots and crew.
A total of 1,841 flights were scheduled from UK airports to France, Spain, Italy and Greece for the two weeks from 17 May, a rise of more than 300% compared with the previous fortnight. Airlines in the US inaugurated hundreds of new routes last week.
Aviation workers will welcome the chance to regain their salaries and reboot their careers, but survey data suggests many will feel depleted as they return to cockpits and cabins, said Paul Cullen, a commercial airline pilot and research associate with the Trinity College team.
We can’t sweep this under the carpet or dress it up. The data says a certain number of pilots were struggling pre-Covid but they wouldn’t disclose a mental health issue to their employer because of the stigma and fear of losing their license and perhaps losing their salary.
Just as airlines have procedures to ensure mothballed planes are airworthy, humans need attention too, said Cullen. “You need to do the same for the crew to make sure they’re airworthy.”
Read the full story here:
The Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service has announced that no prosecutions are to be taken against Black Lives Matter demonstrators who participated in protests in the region when strict Covid-19 rules on public gatherings were in place.
The prosecution service said it had decided not to prosecute 14 suspects reported for potential offences under Stormont’s coronavirus regulations, PA Media reports.
The decisions relate to three protests last summer – two in Belfast and one in Derry.
Prosecutors concluded that the test for prosecution was not met because the suspects would have been able to successfully argue a defence of reasonable excuse.
Updated
Debate is continuing over whether the final stages of unlocking restrictions in England can go ahead on 21 June due to concerns over the spread of the Delta variant first identified in India.
Downing Street has indicated that Boris Johnson still sees nothing in the data to suggest the plan will need to be delayed.
A No 10 spokesman said:
The prime minister has said on a number of occasions that we haven’t seen anything in the data but we will continue to look at the data, we will continue to look at the latest scientific evidence as we move through June towards June 21.
Tuesday’s zero death tally is likely to feed into ministers’ considerations.
They will also consider that the figure followed a bank holiday weekend, so there may be a delay in reporting of deaths.
The NHS Confederation said the ONS figures, which show a 29% fall in coronavirus deaths from the previous week, were reassuring but “the race is not yet won”.
Director of policy Dr Layla McCay said:
Given predictions of a summer wave of infections, the government must now use all available data to consider carefully whether 21 June is the right date for lifting all restrictions.
It is of real concern that cases are climbing quickly, and our members are increasingly worried that this will lead to more hospital admissions.
The vaccination programme in England will be extended to all adults within weeks, while all those aged 18 and over in Wales and Northern Ireland are able to book their jabs.
In Scotland over-18s are being invited to pre-register for a jab with appointments starting in mid-June.
The UK as a whole is expected to hit another milestone of three-quarters of the adult population receiving their first Covid jab.
Latest government data suggests more than 39.4 million people had received their first dose, equating to 74.9% of adults.
Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that current figures “don’t look too intimidating” but they still need to “play out for a couple of weeks” before the government makes its final decision on whether the 21 June reopening can go ahead.
He said:
I think the gain now is, can we get more people vaccinated down into younger, younger age groups to try and stop more transmission.
In Scotland, the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, paused plans to ease restrictions in much of the country.
She announced on Tuesday that while parts of the country will move to Level 1 of the Scottish government’s restrictions from Saturday, much of the central belt including Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow will be kept in Level 2.
Sturgeon said the country was still at a “delicate and fragile point” in the battle with the virus, in an announcement on restrictions which she described as a “mixed bag”.
Scotland’s clinical director, Prof Jason Leitch, warned the Delta variant “is causing us some challenge and is spreading quicker than we hoped”.
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The £1.4bn announced for the post-pandemic catch-up programme for pupils in England is “pitiful” and a fraction of that committed by other countries to help children’s education, a school leaders’ union has said.
Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, hit out at the government on Wednesday as it faced scrutiny over why the money is about a 10th of the £15bn total understood to have been recommended by the education recovery commissioner, Sir Kevan Collins.
Barton said the government package was “dispiriting” and accused the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, of having lower ambitions for children than those of his union’s members.
“It’s pretty pitiful, only yesterday we were hearing stories about extending the school day and even if some people disagreed with it, at least there was a sense of ‘let’s do something radical, let’s do something different’,” he told Sky News.
“Today’s announcement essentially equates to £50 per head: you compare that with the USA which is putting £1,600 per head, per young person, or the Netherlands, £2,500 per head. So what is it about those children in the Netherlands or the USA that makes them worth more than our government seems to say? It’s time to stop the rhetoric I think and start the action on behalf of children and young people.”
Read the full story here:
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A total of 153,229 deaths have now occurred in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, the ONS said.
The highest number of deaths to occur on a single day was 1,477 on 19 January, PA Media reports.
During the first wave of the virus, the daily death toll peaked at 1,461 deaths on 8 April 2020.
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Hundreds of workers at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency have launched fresh industrial action in a long-running dispute over Covid-related safety.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services union at the DVLA site in Swansea went on strike on Wednesday until Saturday, PA Media reports.
The union warned it was entering a new phase of “sustained and targeted” industrial unrest for months to come.
The latest strike is the third time staff have walked out over demands for more safety measures.
The DVLA insists it has done everything possible to keep workers safe and has followed official guidelines.
The PCS general secretary, Mark Serwotka, said a deal was all but agreed to end the dispute, claiming it was suddenly withdrawn at the 11th hour without any explanation.
He said:
Through painstaking negotiation, our union and DVLA senior management were on the verge of agreeing a deal only for it to be scuppered at the last minute.
We strongly suspect senior ministers at the Department for Transport have interfered with the progress we were making and want to make some kind of ideological stand against PCS.
They have grossly underestimated the resolve of our members in DVLA and have only emboldened them to take targeted and sustained action in the months ahead until they win.
PCS is fully prepared for months of strike action, and we urge the government to rethink its position.
A DVLA spokesman said:
It’s disappointing to see the Public and Commercial Services union not only choose to continue with industrial action when there are zero Covid cases at DVLA, but they are also specifically targeting areas of the organisation that will have the greatest negative impact on the public, including some of the more vulnerable people in society, just as restrictions are starting to ease.
The DVLA has worked closely with Public Health Wales along with Swansea environmental health and the Health and Safety Executive who have conducted regular site visits and inspections and have repeatedly confirmed a high level of compliance with control measures.
Millions of people right across the UK are relying on essential DVLA services and PCS’s demands will cause significant and unnecessary disruption to families and businesses, all at a time when they are most needed.
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During a series of interviews on Wednesday, Gavin Williamson struggled to explain the discrepancy between the announced government spending and that recommended by the education recovery commissioner, Sir Kevan Collins, who was appointed in February by Downing Street to lead efforts to make up for the damage done by the coronavirus pandemic, particularly to pupils from more deprived backgrounds.
The education secretary was asked multiple times on Sky News about either the difference in the two sums or about the discussions with the Treasury about funding, and he declined to give a direct answer.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson says he 'absolutely' trusts Sir Kevan Collins and explains the reason the government has put forward £1.4bn instead of the recommended £15bn is because it's part of a 'whole pack of measures'.https://t.co/ImtupcaAIQ pic.twitter.com/dhKdYxEpIk
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 2, 2021
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The proportion of deaths involving coronavirus in England and Wales is at its lowest level for more than eight months, figures show.
There were 9,860 deaths from all causes registered in the week ending 21 May, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Of these, 1.1% (107 deaths) had “novel coronavirus” mentioned on the death certificate, PA news reports.
The last time the proportion was so low was in the week ending 11 September, when the virus accounted for 1% of deaths.
At the peak of the second wave, in the week ending 29 January, Covid-19 accounted for 45.7% of registered deaths.
The latest figure is the lowest number of deaths involving coronavirus since the week ending 11 September, and a fall of 29% from the previous week.
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The prospect of care home workers being required to get vaccinated against Covid-19 has moved a step closer, with a crucial endorsement from the UK’s human rights watchdog.
Ministers are considering changing the law to make vaccination a condition of deployment for people in some professions that come into regular close contact with elderly and vulnerable people at high risk from the coronavirus.
In a report to the government seen by the Guardian, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said making vaccines compulsory for care home staff would be a “significant departure from current public health policy”.
But it judged that ministers were “right to prioritise protection of the right to life for residents and staff” and said it would be reasonable for care home workers to need a jab “in order to work directly with older and disabled people, subject to some important safeguards”.
The EHRC is also likely to make a similar recommendation about healthcare workers, after the vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, suggested over the weekend that NHS staff could face mandatory jabs, too, as some patients were “being infected in hospital”.
Zahawi said no decisions had been made yet, and stressed there was a precedent: surgeons were required to be vaccinated against hepatitis B.
He added:
It would be incumbent on any responsible government to have the debate, to do the thinking about how we go about protecting the most vulnerable by making sure that those who look after them are vaccinated.
A government source said: “We think it would save lives.”
Read the full story here:
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The shadow education secretary, Kate Green, has called for more support for extra-curricular activities in schools.
Green told BBC Breakfast:
What we’re proposing is that there should be a range of measures in a package of support for children and young people.
Yes more time for small group tutoring and catching up on lost learning, but children can’t learn well if they’re worried, if they’re anxious, if they’re not having time to play and develop.
So we’re also suggesting support for extra-curricular activities, play, drama, art and so on, and of course in putting in mental health support in schools.
She added:
Children need some time to relax and enjoy life, over the summer and into the new school year we think the important thing is to make sure the fabulous facilities that schools have, the sports fields, the art rooms, the music rooms and so on, can be used for out-of-school activities too.
So we’re talking about school being open for longer but not for lots of extra formal learning, we don’t want children doing maths at five and six in the evening when they’re really tired.
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Pupils will be offered an extra 100m hours of tuition under post-pandemic catch-up plans unveiled today – but the government faced immediate criticism of the £1.4bn programme, with its own tsar warning “more will be needed”.
After months of unprecedented school closures, £1.4bn will be spent on up to 6m sets of 15-hour tutoring courses for disadvantaged pupils as well as an expansion of an existing fund for helping 16- to 19-year-olds with subjects such as English and maths, the Department for Education said.
There is also provision for extra training and support for teachers, and funding to allow some year 13 students to repeat their final year if it was badly affected by the pandemic.
It gave no immediate verdict on mooted plans to extend school days by 30 minutes. This idea, criticised as misplaced by some teaching unions, will be the subject of a separate review due to report later in the year.
On the new spending plans there was virtual unanimity from unions that the sums committed were insufficient, with the National Education Union calling them “inadequate and incomplete”.
Perhaps even more damaging for ministers, the announced spend is about a 10th of the £15bn total understood to have been recommended by Sir Kevan Collins, who was appointed in February by Downing Street as the education recovery commissioner tasked with leading efforts to make up for the damage done by the coronavirus pandemic, particularly to pupils from more deprived backgrounds.
Read the full story by my colleagues Peter Walker and Rachel Hall here:
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The £1.4bn announced for the catch-up programme for pupils in England is “pitiful”, a school leaders’ union has said.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), told Sky News:
It’s pretty dispiriting, here I am as somebody who is leading a trade union, and for all my colleagues it feels this morning as if we have got higher ambitions for the nation’s children and young people than the education secretary.
It’s pretty pitiful, only yesterday we were hearing stories about extending the school day and even if some people disagreed with it, at least there was a sense of ‘let’s do something radical, let’s do something different’.
Today’s announcement essentially equates to 50 per head, you compare that with the USA which is putting 1,600 per head, per young person, or the Netherlands, 2,500 per head.
So what is it about those children in the Netherlands or the USA that makes them worth more than our government seems to say?
It’s time to stop the rhetoric I think and start the action on behalf of children and young people.
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A total of 107 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 21 May mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate, according to the Office for National Statistics – the lowest number since the week ending September 11 2020.
The figure is down 29% on the previous week. Around one in 91 (1.1%) deaths registered in the week to 21 May mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate.
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Education secretary Gavin Williamson said recording zero deaths from coronavirus on Tuesday was “promising” but urged the public not to be complacent.
Speaking to LBC radio, he said: “It shows that the enormous sacrifices of the British people are starting to really deliver.”
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson says the UK recording zero daily deaths yesterday shows "the enormous sacrifices of the British people are starting to really deliver".@NickFerrariLBC pic.twitter.com/iv09OQZqWW
— LBC (@LBC) June 2, 2021
He said:
The fact that the British people have gone out there with verve and gusto and actually got vaccinated when so many other nations have not had that same level of take-up is a real credit.
It is promising what we’ve seen in terms of zero deaths but we can’t be complacent.
We continue to be careful and we’ve got to make sure we continue to get vaccinated.
Williamson added there was a sense in government that there had been “really promising progress” towards scrapping all restrictions on 21 June, adding:
You’re right to say it is about data, not dates, but the vaccines are having an impact in terms of actually reducing transmission, reducing the number of people in hospital and it is these factors that are going to guide the decision.
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Cabinet minister Gavin Williamson suggested more money will be “required” as the government tackles lost pupil learning during the pandemic.
Put to him that an extra £1.4bn amounted to £50 per pupil in England, the education secretary told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
It is quite unprecedented to be getting this quantum of money outside of a spending review.
But what we decided we needed to do was deliver interventions and support and invest in children immediately – that’s why we’ve ... over the last few months announced a total of over £3bn in terms of targeted help for children.
Asked whether the Department for Education had not announced longer learning hours – with catch-up tsar Sir Kevan Collins reportedly pushing for an additional 100 hours per pupil – due to a lack of extra funding, Williamson said: “I have no doubt that in order to deliver everything we have ambitions for, for our children, there will be more that is required.”
The education secretary said he was “absolutely delighted with £1.4bn”, when asked whether he had wanted more financial investment from the Treasury for the coronavirus catch-up plans.
Pressed further on LBC radio on whether he had requested an additional “£5-6bn”, Williamson said:
It is incredibly tempting to get involved in divulging to you private conversations with the chancellor and the prime minister, but I’m going to possibly sidestep this one, if that’s OK?
Welcome to today’s liveblog. I’m Nicola Slawson and I’ll be taking you through today’s key developments. Get in touch if you think there is something I am missing. My email is nicola.slawson@theguardian.com or you can tweet me @Nicola_Slawson or comment below.
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