Afternoon summary
- Vaccines have prevented 22m coronavirus infections and 60,000 deaths in England, new research has said. (See 2.22pm.)
That’s all from me for today. But our coronavirus coverage continues on our global live blog. It’s here.
Updated
Sunak defends plan to end £20 per week universal credit uplift
Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has defended the decision to end the £20 per week uplift to universal credit at the end of September. But that would not mean the government was no longer committed to helping people, he said.
The increase was introduced as a temporary measure at the start of the pandemic. Ministers have been under pressure to make it permanent, but Sunak said it would end. Speaking on a visit to Scotland, he said:
That was always meant to be a temporary intervention, that was clear from the outset. Like furlough and the other things we’ve done, some will start to ease off.
But we’re not done helping people get through this.
Asked about families who could find themselves in poverty when the uplift ends, he replied:
There’s lots of different ways we can help those people. What we’re doing is providing support in a way that will sustainably help those people.
I think the right thing is to help those families into really high-paid work, that’s the best way to help those children.
We know that children growing up in a workless household are five times more likely to be in poverty than those that don’t. That tells me that the best way to help those children is to help their parents find really good jobs.
Boris Johnson is also fond of saying he favours work as an alternative to benefits as a route out of poverty. But, as a recent Institute for Fiscal Studies report points out, excluding pensioners, only a third of low-income people live in a workless household.
Lib Dems accuse government of introducing 'Covid ID cards by stealth' after change to app settings
The government has been accused of introducing “Covid ID cards by stealth” after it emerged that the NHS app, which has been showing people’s vaccination status for overseas travel, now includes a “domestic” section for use at venues asking to see a Covid pass.
Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dems’ home affairs spokesman, said:
The government has just committed to vaccine passports by stealth. This deceitful move is deeply shameful.
We now have a new ID card snuck onto our phones without even as much as a whisper from the government.
Just this morning, ministers on TV and radio were flapping about when asked simple questions how this would actually work. Now it is on all our phones.
To get your vaccine passport, you have to type and click through a bunch of options. Just think of the faff getting into hospitality businesses, who don’t want it and can’t afford to pay staff to police it.
The Conservatives are no strangers to a U-turn, they should have no problem with doing the right thing and scrapping vaccine passports for good.
“At least when Tony Blair tried to introduce ID cards he put a bill to parliament. This lot won’t even open up parliament to debate it. They must recall parliament now if they are serious about this.”
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New Covid cases rise for second day in row - although weekly trend still shows them going down
New Covid cases have risen for the second day in a row, according to the latest update to the government’s dashboard. They have gone up from 27,734 yesterday to 31,117 today - a rise of 3,383, following yesterday’s rise of 4,223.
But the new total is still well below the equivalent figure for a week ago today (39,906). And the total number of new cases over the past week is still 37.1% down on the total for the previous seven days.
The dashboard also shows that there have been 85 further deaths. Total deaths over the past week are up 28.9% on the total for the previous seven days.
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution says it received around £200,000 in donations in a 24-hour period this week as it defended the work it has done rescuing migrants in difficulty crossing the Channel, following criticism from the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage. Normally it gets around £7,000 a day. Sajid Javid, the health secretary, has been among those contributing. (See 1.10pm.)
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Demand for flights from the US to the UK has surged since the government announced the scrapping of the quarantine requirement for fully vaccinated travellers, PA Media reports. Virgin Atlantic said it received more than three times as many bookings for flights from New York to London compared with a week earlier, while total bookings across all its US to UK routes more than doubled.
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Public Health England has published its weekly Covid surveillance report (pdf). It covers the week ending Sunday 25 July and it says during that period “case rates decreased in most age groups, and in all regions and ethnic groups”.
This week's #COVID19 surveillance report shows case rates continue to be highest in those aged 10-19 years old.
— Public Health England (@PHE_uk) July 29, 2021
Read the full report here: https://t.co/FCcjHmBd7v pic.twitter.com/5e7xcHXDlt
Our weekly #COVID19 surveillance report also shows that case rates continue to be highest in the North East.
— Public Health England (@PHE_uk) July 29, 2021
Find out more here: https://t.co/FCcjHmBd7v pic.twitter.com/DQPvCyaHDa
“Herd immunity [from coronavirus] may be in sight,” a prominent thinktank has claimed. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research produces a fortnightly Covid tracker, and in its latest edition, out today, it says the latest peak in cases “has occurred somewhat sooner than we forecast”.
Under the headline “herd immunity may be in sight”, it forecasts “a uniform reduction of cases across all English regions”. It says:
It would appear that a large enough proportion of the population is currently immune, due either to vaccination or prior infection, thereby reducing the probability of transmission between persons.
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Vaccines have prevented 60,000 deaths and 22m Covid cases in England, research suggests
Prof Jonathan Van-Tam the deputy chief medical officer for England told BBC News a few minutes ago that new research suggested that vaccines had prevented 22m coronavirus infections and 60,000 deaths in England.
He was speaking shortly before the publication of Public Health England’s latest vaccine surveillance report (pdf), which contains the figures. It says:
Estimates suggest that 60,000 deaths and 22,057,000 infections have been prevented as a result of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, up to 9 July.
This calculation is based on how many people would have been infected, or died, without the vaccines, assuming no other interventions. But of course if the vaccines were not available, then it is almost certain that much tougher lockdown measures would have remained in force.
Updated
The recent fall in Covid cases as measured by the government’s Covid dashboard does not look plausible, a prominent academic has said.
Prof Tim Spector said he thought the official data looks “a bit fishy” because it does not correspond with what other figures are showing.
Spector runs the Zoe Covid Symptom Study, which uses an app to get people to report when they are suffering coronavirus symptoms. More than 4 million people around the world have downloaded it, and its data has provided a broadly reliable guide to how the pandemic has developed over the last year.
As Sky News reports, his figures suggest cases are running at about twice the level recorded on the government’s dashboard. Spector said he thought the fall in the number of cases recorded on the dashboard over the past week looked “very suspicious”. He explained:
It’s dropped something like 30% in two days, which is pretty much unheard of in pandemics, and remember this is happening without restrictions, without lockdowns, without some sudden event.
To me, it looks a bit fishy.
It looks as if there’s some other explanation for this other than suddenly the virus has given up.
Spector said one explanation might be younger people choosing not to get tested.
Updated
No 10 says 260 of promised 2,000 workplace testing centres for workers exempt from isolation rules now open
Here are the main points from the Downing Street lobby briefing.
- The No 10 spokesman said that 260 workplace testing centres were now open for essential workers in England allowed to use testing as an alternative to isolation if they have been in contact with someone testing positive. And he said the government was in the process of establishing another 800 which would be open “soon”. After that the rest of the 2,000 promised would be set up “in the coming days and weeks”. The spokesman did not dispute suggestions that some of these sites might open after 16 August, when all fully-vaccinated people in England will be able to use testing as an alternative to isolation. Asked if this was because the government wanted to make workplace testing the norm, the spokesman said testing would remain an important part of the Covid strategy in the future.
- The spokesman effectively confirmed that the government is considering temporarily abandoning the triple lock for pensions. In its election manifesto the Conservative party said it would keep the triple lock, which ensures a pension rise every year in line with earnings, inflation, or 2.5% - whichever is highest. But the post-Covid economic recovery means that earnings could see a one-off huge spike this year, which means the triple lock would give pensioners an equivalent unintended and expensive annual rise. Asked if Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, was right when she implied yesterday that it is being reviewed, the spokesman said:
The chancellor has said previously that the triple lock is government policy. But we recognise people’s concerns. We’ve got to ensure fairness for both taxpayers and pensioners.
The spokesman said the government was keeping the figures under review. When it was put to him that the whole point of the triple lock was to ensure that annual pension increases are no longer subject to review, the spokesman just referred journalists back to what the chancellor has said on this previously.
- The spokesman said Boris Johnson thinks the Royal National Lifeboat Institution does “vital work”. He was responding to questions about the abuse some RNLI crews have been receiving, after the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage accused it of operating a “migrant taxi service” because it has been rescuing migrants in the Channel. Asked if the PM has followed the example of Sajid Javid, the health secretary, who has donated to the RNLI in light of this controversy, the spokesman said he had not asked the PM this question.
Thank you @RNLI for all that you do. https://t.co/MkdOU1IHaP
— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) July 28, 2021
Just made a donation. If you’d like to too - and help save lives - please visit https://t.co/TnJtqXeXbg pic.twitter.com/tk6a8Zky3k
— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) July 28, 2021
- The spokesman refused to say whether Johnson agreed with Allegra Stratton, his spokesperson for Cop26, when she said that joining the Green party was an option for people wanting to do something about the climate crisis. He said he could not answer as that was a party political matter. Asked if the PM thought a government led by the Green party would do a better job of tackling the crisis, the spokesman also declined to answer, saying that was party political. But he said the government was trying to make Cop26 “as big a success as it can be”.
Updated
These are from Torsten Bell, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, a thinktank focusing on pay and inequality, on today’s furlough figures. (See 11.44am.)
Two big take-aways from today's furlough stats. 1. almost 2 million workers still furloughed as the scheme's phase out started. That's more than I expected and the rate of decline halved in June from May (lesson = labour market chat has become too complacent) pic.twitter.com/xZgxG1AmAp
— Torsten Bell (@TorstenBell) July 29, 2021
2. Furlough is now an older workers story. The young (who were most likely to have been furloughed) are flowing off the scheme much faster. Older workers are more likely to be parked on it and as a result, for the first time, they have the highest furlough rates pic.twitter.com/Ot6ThssfJa
— Torsten Bell (@TorstenBell) July 29, 2021
Updated
Here are some of the key figures from the latest weekly performance figures (pdf) from NHS test and trace.
- 307,758 people in England tested positive at least once in the week to Wednesday 21 July, the figures show. That’s an increase of 18% on the total for the previous week and it is the highest weekly number since the second week of January. (After 21 July recorded cases in the UK started falling significantly.)
- 63.7% of people who were tested at an in-person site in England in the week to 21 July got their result within 24 hours, down from 64.7% the previous week.
- 14.8% of people referred to the test and trace system in England in the week to 21 July because they tested positive could not be reached to provide details of their contacts. That was the highest proportion of people not reached since mid October.
Northern Ireland creating selfie opportunities at vaccine centres to help promote jab take-up amongst young, MLAs told
The next Covid wave may be more severe in Northern Ireland than in other parts of the UK because vaccine take-up rates have been lower, members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) at Stormont have been told.
Prof Ian Young, Northern Ireland’s chief scientific adviser, told the assembly’s health committee:
We lag behind England, Scotland and Wales in terms of first dose vaccination by around by 5 to 6% minimum, and in some cases by more than that.
In terms of second doses vaccination, we’re very similar to England and Scotland but we lag behind Wales by about 10%.
So, there has been a concern that the willingness of the Northern Ireland population to come forward for vaccination, for whatever reason, seems less than that in other parts of the UK and that will lead to a larger susceptible population in Northern Ireland and therefore the potential for a more severe wave on this occasion.
Patricia Donnelly, head of Northern Ireland’s vaccination programme, said take-up among the 18 to 29 age group has been “incredibly slow”. Just under 60% of them have had a first jab, compared to 70% for 30 to 39-year-olds.
She told MLAs that various initiatives were being tried to encourage uptake, including areas in vaccine centres where people can take selfies. “We realised that if we didn’t allow the opportunities for selfies, it may not actually even be seen as an important event so we created those areas within the centres,” she said.
Updated
590,000 people left furlough scheme in June, Treasury figures show
Another 590,000 people were removed from the government’s furlough programme in June, PA Media reports. PA says:
Official Treasury data shows that 1.9 million people were still furloughed by the end of June, a reduction from 2.4 million a month earlier.
June’s numbers are the last before the scheme started to shift more of the burden from the Treasury to companies.
In July, employers had to pick up 10% of their employees’ salaries, while government support dropped from 80% to 70%.
Starting on Sunday, this will be reduced further to 60%, with employers picking up 20% of the furlough pay in August and September. After that, the scheme will end.
A national Holocaust memorial centre will be built next to parliament after a minister signed-off on a recommendation that the location would present a “powerful associative message”, PA Media reports. PA says:
The Board of Deputies of British Jews welcomed the decision by housing and planning minister Chris Pincher, which came after local public inquiries were held in October and November due to the application being called in for central consideration.
The proposal to build the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Victoria Tower Gardens, to mark the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the Jewish people and other minorities during the second world war, faced objections from campaign groups.
But Pincher agreed with planning inspector David Morgan that the “application should be approved”.
Almost 700,000 people in England and Wales pinged by NHS Covid app, latest weekly figures show
A record 689,313 alerts were sent to users of the NHS Covid-19 app in England and Wales in the week to Wednesday 21 July telling them they had been in close contact with someone who had tested positive for coronavirus, PA Media reports.
That is an increase of more than 70,000 on the total for the previous week (618,903), NHS figures show.
UPDATE: The new figure for England is 678,102, and the figure for Wales is 11,211.
Updated
Lord Ashcroft, the billionaire former Conservative party deputy chairman, has announced that he is going to publish a biography of Carrie Johnson, the prime minister’s wife, early next year. The news has probably not prompted unalloyed joy in Downing Street. Ashcroft has published several political biographies in recent years, and generally they have been thorough and fair. (The exception was the David Cameron book, seen as a hatchet job by an author who felt Cameron had betrayed a promise to make him a minister, but the book itself was better and more reasonable than the excruciating pig sex claim serialised in a newspaper implied.) But no biography is entirely complimentary, and Ashcroft can afford to pay for much more thorough research than most other authors. Who knows what he’ll turn up about Carrie?
Pleased to report my next book will be a biography of @carrielbjohnson. She is an impressive person - a high-level career in politics and a record of campaigning on animal rights and the environment. Early research has proved fascinating.
— Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) July 29, 2021
READ MORE👇https://t.co/p3A4jtp7mg
Updated
Quarter of under-35s who test positive admit not fully adhering to isolation rules, ONS says
The Office for National Statistics has published a report on compliance with isolation rules for people who test positive. It covers England, and the new data is from a survey that took place between 5 and 10 July. Here are the key points.
- A quarter of adults under the age of 35 admit not fully adhering to isolation rules if they test positive, the ONS says. For older people, adherence with the rules is higher. The ONS says the behaviour of the under-35s changed after May (after step 3 in England, when indoor hospitality opened, and other restrictions were lifted). The ONS says:
Between 5 and 10 July 2021, adherence to the requirements was statistically significantly lower among those aged between 18 and 34 years (75%) compared with those aged between 35 and 54 years (86%). There were no other statistically significant differences between age groups. Adherence among those aged between 18 and 34 years showed a statistically significant decrease between May and June 2021 (88% to 77%) and has remained broadly stable in July, at 75%. There has been no statistically significant change in adherence for other age groups since May 2021.
- Overall 79% of adults says they fully adhere to isolation rules if they test positive, the ONS says. It says this figure, for July, is the same as the figure for June, but that in early May adherence was even higher, at 86%.
- The ONS says 42% of those who tested positive said isolation had a negative effect on their well-being and mental health. This has gone up from 37% in early May.
- And it says 31% of those who tested positive said they lost income while isolating. This has gone up from 27% in early May.
Raab says it is 'very unlikely' people from US or EU will fake double-jab certification
And here are some lines from the interviews that Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has been giving this morning.
- Raab said he thought it was “very unlikely” that people from the US or the EU would fake the certificates they will need showing they have been fully vaccinate for quarantine-fee entry to Britain. In an interview on the Today programme, he said:
We can’t guarantee that some people might not do it. I think it is highly unlikely.
The point here is that, with both the European countries and the US, we are talking about high-trust countries with whom we have not just an intuitive level of high trust, we have active co-operation, so we know that we can straighten out any discrepancies we might come across pretty quickly.
Raab also said that for the US, where there is no centralised certificate system equivalent to the EU’s, there would be a “double lock”, with arrivals required to provide proof of US residency as well as evidence of vaccination.
- He said the government was having “lots of conversations at every level” with counterparts in the US about getting Washington to lift restrictions for fully-vaccinated Britons wanting to visit the country.
- He said other countries want to strike travel deals with the UK in the light of yesterday’s announcement about fully-vaccinated visitors from the US and the EU. He told Times Radio:
Overnight, I can tell you I’ve got foreign ministers messaging me saying, “Can we work with you on a reciprocal basis because we want to get our nationals on that on that list with the Europeans and the US.” So I think we are showing leadership on this but I’m very certain that it will be reciprocated.
- He said that giving away surplus vaccine to poorer countries - a process starting this week - would make Britain safer. He said:
We have already given a huge amount through Covax, through the financing of Covax, but we can now, from domestic supply, start to give 100 million, which will get the world vaccinated.
We have got moral reasons for doing that. You look at Jamaica, Laos, Cambodia, some of the countries - Kenya - we are vaccinating and we feel a sense of moral responsibility.
But we also know, bluntly, that we are safer when the rest of the world is safer, whether it is for people going on holiday or whether it is just the ordinary course of international trade that we need and we rely on.
- He said guidance on whether students will have to be double jabbed to return to university will be available in September.
- He said he was “unlikely” to be visiting Beijing for the Winter Olympics next year. But he also said the government did not want to “overly politicise the Olympics”.
- He defended the government’s decision to refuse to let some Afghan interpreters who worked for the British army in Afghanistan settle in the UK. Senior military figures have written to the PM saying: “Too many of our former interpreters have unnecessarily and unreasonably been rejected.” But Raab says 2,200 interpreters has been allowed to come to the UK, and only around 100 rejected. It was right to impose some checks and conditions, he said. He went on:
Can you imagine the questions you’d be asking me if we just said that without any checks at all, we’d let anyone that applied come in?
- He defended the government’s decision to buy a replacement for the royal yacht. The ship, to be known as the national flagship, is now expected to cost up to £250m. Asked if this would be money well spent, Raab told LBC:
If we can make sure that it is expanding our influence and our reach overseas, creating jobs for the UK, extending our soft power, being a force for good in the world, all of those things come together and a yacht can really boost our ability to do all of those things.
Updated
Raab admits vaccine passports plan is intended to encourage young to get jabs
Good morning. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has been doing the minister for broadcasting slot this morning, and on the Today programme he effectively admitted that the government has been talking up the need for vaccine passports recently to encourage younger people to get the jab. A week and a half ago Boris Johnson made the surprise announcement that, from the end of September, vaccine passports would be required for people wanting to go to nightclubs. Since then it has emerged that ministers are also considering them for Premier League football matches and for students wanting to stay in halls of residence or to attend lectures.
Many people will have taken the view that it is blindingly obvious that the government has been using the threat of not being allowed to attend events as a means of strong-arming the young (the group with the lowest vaccine take-up) to get jabbed. But no senior minister has said so in public this explicitly, and Raab’s comment also begs the question, if the threat actually works, will vaccine passports then still be needed in the autumn?
After talking about the case for vaccine passports, Raab told the Today programme:
We got 70% of people double vaccinated, in terms of the adult population. We need to encourage more and more of those who have not yet got the vaccinations to receive it. What we just don’t want to do is hold the country back for those that, for whatever reasons, haven’t taken up that offer ...
I was in France earlier this week. We’ve seen, when they signalled in various different areas that you would need double vaccination in order to proceed in one or other area, they got a big surge of people getting the double vaccinations. And so it is a little bit of coaxing and cajoling, and also making clear that ultimately, over September, when we know we’ll see an increase in cases, that we can control that with backstop, safeguard measures.
When it was put to Raab that he was implying the UK was following France, where Covid passes are being rolled out widely, he initially resisted the charge. He said:
I wasn’t bringing it up to say we’re following the French model. I was bringing it up to demonstrate that what you can actually do, and in some areas, if you’re careful, is encourage take up of the vaccination.
But then he said the government should be considering copying policies from abroad that are effective at increasing vaccine take-up. He said:
You’d be criticising me as foreign secretary if I wasn’t learning from countries, whether it’s in Europe or in Asia, which responded very effectively to the early [pandemic]. What I’m saying is I will learn from any country that has got experience of rapid increase in take-up of the vaccine
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The ONS publishes figures on compliance with isolation for people testing positive.
11am: Latest test and trace performance figures are published.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
1pm: Tony Blair, the former PM, and John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy, speak at an event on the climate crisis at the Science Museum.
2pm: Public Health England publishes its latest weekly Covid surveillance report.
Afternoon: Boris Johnson speaks at the Global Education Summit.
Politics Live has been a mix of Covid and non-Covid news recently and that will probably be the case today. For more coronavirus developments, do follow our global Covid live blog.
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