Early evening summary
- Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has categorically ruled out any changes to the support or childcare bubble system. He was speaking at a No 10 press conference only hours after Boris Johnson said he was not ruling out toughening the lockdown rules. (See 2.33pm.) Asked if a further clampdown could involve support bubbles being removed, Hancock said:
I can rule out removing the bubbles that we have in place - the childcare bubbles [and] the support bubbles are very important and we’re going to keep them. I know how important they are to people and they are an important part of the system that we have got to support people whilst also having these tough measures that are necessary.
- Hancock has said meeting a friend outside could be banned if people don’t follow current rules. (See 5.38pm.)
- He has defended Boris Johnson’s right to go for a cycle ride seven miles from No 10. (See 1.48pm and 5.38pm.)
- Hancock has praised the supermarket firm Morrisons for saying it will refuse to serve people who do not wear face masks. He said:
It isn’t just about the government and the rules we set, or the police and the work that they do - it’s about how everybody behaves. I applaud the action Morrisons has taken today, the supermarket, they have said that they will not let people in without a mask unless they clearly have a medical reason. That’s the right approach and I want to see all parts of society playing their part in this.
- Hancock has said he is “confident” that the government can meet its target of offering the vaccine to around 14 million people who are in the top four priority groups by the middle of February.
- Hancock has revealed that the seven-day rolling average for UK Covid deaths reported daily has reached 926. (See 5.09pm.) But the latest figure shows the rolling average for the number of new cases starting to fall. (See 5.09pm.) The full dashboard data has just been published and is available here.
That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.
Updated
A total of 3,718 hospital admissions of people with Covid-19 in England were reported for 9 January, NHS England figures also showed. As PA Media reports, this is slightly below the record number of 3,967 admissions reported for 6 January, but up 18% on the equivalent figure a week ago on 2 January. During the first wave of the virus, admissions peaked at 3,099 on April 1 2020.
NHS England has published a map of vaccination sites in England, as well as lists of local vaccination services and hospital hubs where vaccines are being administered. They are here.
Hancock rules out support bubbles being removed if restrictions tightened
Q: Can you rule out removing childcare bubbles or support bubbles?
Yes, says Hancock. He says he can rule out those bubbles being banned.
He says he knows people have been concerned about this. He is glad to be able to clarify this.
One person who will be glad to hear this is Boris Johnson. According to a story in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday, he is in a household bubble with Josephine McAfee, the mother of his partner Carrie Symonds. McAfee has been “assisting her daughter [and Johnson] with care for her grandson Wilfred in the spacious flat above 11 Downing Street,” the paper said.
Hancock says meeting a friend outside could be banned if people don’t follow current rules
Q: Can I go for a walk in the park with a friend, with a takeaway cup of coffee? If it is, why are people being fined for this? And is it okay to go seven miles for a cycle ride?
Hancock says you can go and exercise with one other person, but only one other person. You should be two metres apart. And if too many people keep breaking this rule, “then we are going to have to look at it, but I don’t want to do that.” He says it is very important people do not “flex” the rule.
And he says it is okay to go for a long walk, and end up seven miles from home. But you should stay local. You should not go from one part of the country to another.
- Hancock says meeting a friend outside could be banned if people don’t follow current rules.
- Hancock defends Boris Johnson’s right to go for a cycle ride seven miles from No 10.
Q: Will you vaccinate people 24 hours a day?
Hancock says he is willing to do this if people want it. It might work for people on night shifts, he says.
Powis says he thinks most people will want to be vaccinated during the day. That works best for staff, he says.
Hancock praises Morrisons for the way they are going to ban shoppers who don’t wear a mask unless they have a valid reason. (See 4.46pm.)
Q: Can you vaccinate 12.5 million more people in just five weeks?
Hancock says he is confident they can meet this target. There has been a continue increased in the rate of vaccination, in all four countries of the UK. It won’t be easy, but the target can be met.
Powis tells the questioner, the BBC’s medical editor, Fergus Walsh, that he knows Walsh was impressed by what he saw at the Epsom mass vaccination centre because Walsh has written about it.
He has, here. Walsh wrote:
A steady stream of Surrey residents, mostly in their 80s, filed in from a large outdoor car park.
Given that these are among the most at risk from Covid, it is vital that vaccination centres maintain rigorous social distancing.
From what I observed, it looked like it had been well thought out.
Q: When will lockdown restrictions be eased and lifted?
Hancock says this is the key question.
He says he cannot give a date.
But he says 88% of the deaths have occurred in people who are in the top four priority categories. They are due to be offered a vaccine by 15 February.
After that point, deaths should start to fall.
But younger people in their 60s can also die from Covid, and they are a significant proportion of people in hospital. So they are being prioritised too.
He says we know the vaccine reduces your chances of getting Covid, or dying from it. But we don’t know what impact vaccination will have on transmission.
He says they hope it will have a significant downward impact on transmissibility.
Q: How will you support families who cannot afford laptops when their children have to learn online?
Hancock says the government is sending out 500,000 laptops for families in this situation. He hopes this will help.
Powis is speaking now. He says the best way to thank the NHS staff for all their work is to follow the guidance.
Hancock says 80,000 people working or volunteering in vaccination programme
Hancock says he wants to expand where people can get a vaccine.
As of Friday, 96% of the population of England live within 10 miles of a vaccination centre.
By the end of January, everyone in England should be within 10 miles of a vaccination centre, a fixed one or a rolling one, he says.
He says 80,000 people are in the vaccination workforce.
I’m incredibly grateful to all those who stepped forward, including people from all parts of the NHS, retired clinicians, pharmacists, airline cabin crew, the armed services, St John Ambulance and the Royal voluntary service, and so many volunteers who’ve come forward for their country.
Hancock is now talking about vaccine prioritisation.
He says two fifths of over-80s have had their first dose of vaccine.
And almost a quarter of elderly care home residents have had their first dose. He says the government is committed to reaching all of them by the end of this month.
Hancock is now summarising the vaccines delivery plan.
He says the problem at the moment is supply.
Updated
And he says on average there have been 926 deaths a day over the past week.
Hancock says there are 32,294 people in the UK in hospital with coronavirus.
Updated
Hancock has arrived.
He says there were 46,169 new cases yesterday.
(Hancock does not say so, but this slide shows the seven-day average for new cases has just started to fall.)
Hancock is running late, according to Sky News.
Matt Hancock's press conference
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is about to hold a press conference. He will be joined by Prof Stephen Powis, the NHS England medical director.
Quarter of Covid admissions to hospital under age of 55, MPs told
Giving evidence to the Commons public accounts committee, Sir Simon Stevens, the NHS England chief executive, said a quarter of coronavirus admissions to hospital are for people under the age of 55. He told them:
In London perhaps one in 30 people has the coronavirus, in parts of London it may be twice that number.
If you look across other regions of England the issue is that coronavirus is once again on the rise.
In Merseyside in just the last week there has been a further 50% increase in the number of Covid hospitalisations. [See 3.30pm.]
So this is a very serious moment for the country and for the National Health Service.
It’s worth remembering that this affects all ages - a quarter of the Covid admissions to hospital right now are for people aged under 55.
From the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg
Morrisons have announced they'll ban shoppers who won't wear a mask unless they are medically exempt - govt reluctant right now to make any further changes to lockdown laws... wouldn't be surprising however to see more of this kind of thing with individual biz taking own action
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) January 11, 2021
A question from below the line.
The government announced an agreement with the social media companies covering this issue towards the end of last year. “Facebook, Twitter and Google committed to the principle that no company should profit from or promote Covid-19 anti-vaccine disinformation, to respond to flagged content more swiftly, and to work with authorities to promote scientifically accurate messages,” the government said.
Labour has called for legislation on this issue, but the government has not taken up this idea.
As for what impact anti-vax disinformation actually has, I’m not aware of any research on this, although I presume someone has tried to quantify the impact.
Updated
Updated
This is from Prof Tim Spector, who runs the Covid symptom study, which assesses the spread of coronavirus from people reporting symptoms through an app. He says his latest data shows the number of new cases in the UK starting to fall, but the number of cases amongst the over-60s (the group most likely to end up in hospital) still rising.
Good news/bad news story today from the ZOE app- as number of new daily cases falls again back to 62000 - but over 800,000 current symptomatic cases and the trend is still up in the over 60s which explains the huge pressure on the hospitals, many 50% full of Covid patients. pic.twitter.com/kxTo7ZT3kj
— Tim Spector (@timspector) January 11, 2021
Sunak says UK not doing worse than other countries during Covid economically if output measured fairly
In his response to Anneliese Dodds, Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, said that she was wrong to say that Britain’s economy had suffered worse during the pandemic than other equivalent economies.
He said that it was important to compare like with like, and that the way Britain calculated public sector output was very different to the way most other countries calculated it. He said the difference flattered other countries, and disadvantaged the UK.
He said once this was taken into account, Britain’s economic performance was “very much in line with comparable countries” and not any worse.
Sky’s economic editor, Ed Conway, explained this in his Times column (paywall) recently. And he has set out the argument in a Twitter thread starting here.
Which developed country would you say is facing the biggest economic slump of all? The conventional answer is the UK. Eg see this @OECD forecast. But here's a thread about an obscure bit of statistical small print which might mean we've been overstating the scale of the recession pic.twitter.com/Miw1tw3Hcy
— Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) January 1, 2021
My colleague Rajeev Syal has been tweeting from the public accounts committee hearing. (See 2.42pm.)
1/ Sir Simon Stevens, NHS head, tells MPs on the public accounts committee that total number of vaccinations for England now 2.3m and for UK is now over 2.5m.
— rajeev syal (@syalrajeev) January 11, 2021
2/ Simon Stevens says 'there is a strong case' for teachers and other key workers to ask the JCVI to consider them for vaccination once the high priority groups have been vaccinated.
— rajeev syal (@syalrajeev) January 11, 2021
3/ Localised vaccine data - crucial to ensure that the vaccines are being evenly spread around the country - will be sent out over the next week to ten days, Simon Stevens tells @CommonsPAC.
— rajeev syal (@syalrajeev) January 11, 2021
4/ Kate Bingham, head of the Vaccine Taskforce, tells MPs the portfolio of seven vaccine candidates has developed well; says we should try to improve the vaccine formats which require needles and cold chains. "We need oral, buckle or intra nasal or a patch," she said.
— rajeev syal (@syalrajeev) January 11, 2021
Rishi Sunak has just finished his statement. He did not have anything new to announce, and instead he just presented a rather gloomy overview, although he did end by saying the resilience of the British people would allow the country to get through this.
So why did he bother? Perhaps because he has been criticised recently for keeping such a low profile. Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, alluded to this in her response. She said it has been six weeks since he last addressed the Commons.
She also criticised him for having “nothing new” to say.
Public Health Wales has recorded 1,793 further coronavirus cases and 17 further deaths.
The number of new cases is higher than yesterday’s total (1,660), but lower last Monday’s (1,898).
And the number of deaths is lower than yesterday’s total (45) and lower than last Monday’s (25).
The rapid COVID-19 surveillance dashboard has been updated.
— Public Health Wales (@PublicHealthW) January 11, 2021
💻 https://t.co/zpWRYSUbfh
📱 https://t.co/HSclxpZjBh
Read our daily statement here: https://t.co/u6SKHz0zsG pic.twitter.com/C5nS0BeRHh
Sunak says he expects economy to get worse before it gets better
Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is making a statement to the Commons about the economy now. He has just told MPs that he expects the economy to get worse before it gets better.
Boris Johnson has said the NHS is engaged in a “race against time” to get people vaccinated on his visit to the new mass vaccination centre in Bristol. And he has admitted that in some places hospitals are running short of oxygen. He said:
It’s a race against time because we can all see the threat that our NHS faces, the pressure it’s under, the demand in intensive care units, the pressure on ventilated beds, even a shortage of oxygen in some places.
The biggest increases in Covid-19 case rates are now happening outside the south and east of England, latest figures show. According to PA Media, the Liverpool city region and parts of the West Midlands have seen particularly sharp rises.
In Knowsley on Merseyside the rate has soared from 455.4 cases per 100,000 in the seven days to 30 December to 1,263.4 per 100,000 in the seven days to 6 January - the biggest week-on-week rise for any local authority area in England.
Halton in Cheshire, which is also part of the Liverpool city region, saw the second biggest jump, from 533.2 to 1,220.2, PA Media reports. And Liverpool itself recorded the third largest increase, from 387.5 to 958.6.
All six authorities in the Liverpool city region are currently in the top 10 local areas with the biggest week-on-week jump in rates.
Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Walsall - all within the West Midlands metropolitan county - have also seen sharp increases. In Wolverhampton rates have jumped from 638.3 to 1,033.6, in Sandwell they are up from 567.5 to 953.0, and in Walsall they have risen from 497.1 to 815.5.
This is from Ian Jones from PA Media.
Incredibly sharp rise in Covid-19 rates in parts of the Liverpool City Region.
— Ian Jones (@ian_a_jones) January 11, 2021
These six areas were still in Tier 2 as late as December 30. pic.twitter.com/CBqksPz6lB
Updated
NHS England has recorded 489 more coronavirus hospital deaths. That is lower than the total for yesterday (508) but well up on the total for Monday last week (376). The details are here.
By lunchtime only a few dozen people had received their jabs at the vaccination centre set up in Bristol’s Ashton Gate stadium, most of them health and social care workers.
Irene Reynolds, 80, a mother of two, was the first person in her age bracket to be vaccinated at the stadium. The retired office worker, from Weston-super-Mare said she thought it would have been busier. She said:
I am surprised at how quiet it was to be honest, I thought there would be queues and queues. But it was a great experience, everyone was pleasant, they told you where to go and what to do at all times, it went well.
I got the letter on Saturday morning, rang the number, got the appointment and here I am. I was surprised I got the appointment so quickly and I had to travel a little bit but it is all for our own good, isn’t it?
Sue Jones, a retired nurse from Clevedon, North Somerset, had volunteered to return to the NHS to help out and received her vaccination. She said:
It is a gamechanger and will change people’s lives, although it will obviously take time. I was shielding during the first lockdown so I am pleased to have the option today, as a retired and returned nurse.
Rosilyn Wlaznik, 51, a domiciliary care manager in Weston-super-Mare, said she was “very surprised” to have been contacted about being vaccinated and she had to book a time slot to arrive at the vaccination centre. “It was very well organised and there were probably only half a dozen people in there getting a vaccine. They have done that to make people feel safe I think,” she said.
Updated
Nearly all non-jury trials in Scotland have been postponed because of the latest Covid-19 lockdown, cutting the number of criminal trials over the next few weeks by around 75%.
The decision, which comes into force from tomorrow, means only the most serious cases and ongoing jury trials will be held, with jurors working from remote jury centres.
The Scottish courts and tribunal service said it was driven by the greater risks from the much more infectious variant of Covid-19 blamed for the rise in cases in Scotland, B117.
The Scottish courts statement said the decision was taken “in order to support the public health response to the Covid-19 pandemic at this critical time. These will significantly reduce the number of people required to attend court in person, whilst ensuring that the most essential business is maintained in the interests of justice and the safety of those involved.”
Scottish ministers and Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge, came under heavy criticism from within the legal profession and from opposition parties after deciding during the first lockdown in March 2020 to stop all criminal trials because of the difficulties organising Covid-safe hearings.
No such decision was taken in England and Wales, however, and it was soon reversed after an outcry about the impact on the civil rights of the accused and of the victims of crime.
Speaking at her regular coronavirus briefing, Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, defended the latest decision. She said:
We believe these measures represent a proportionate response to the increased risk of transmission and will keep people safe from Covid, while allowing the most serious criminal cases to proceed.
Updated
The UK government has just published its 47-page vaccines delivery plan (pdf). As the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg reports, it suggests that once all over-50s, health and care staff and people with serious underlying health conditions have been offered the vaccine by the spring, in the second phase, when all other adults get offered a vaccine, key workers such as teachers, and people at particular risk of exposure, such as people working in shops, could get priority.
Including interesting nugget about who might get vaccine next after most vulnerable groups covered -'Phase 2 of the roll-out may include further reduction in hospitalisation and targeted vaccination of those at high risk of exposure and/or those delivering key public services'
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) January 11, 2021
Raises a debate about teachers and other public sector workers possibly going to front of queue after the most vulnerable and at risk from the disease have received their vaccines
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) January 11, 2021
Updated
More than 2.5m people in UK have now had one dose of vaccine, MPs told
The public accounts committee has just started taking evidence from Sir Simon Stevens, the NHS England chief executive, Kate Bingham, head of the vaccine taskforce, and five other senior officials about vaccines.
Stevens has just told the MPs that 2.3 million people in England and more than 2.5 million people in the UK, have now had one dose of the vaccine.
Updated
Vaccination programme should not encourage 'false complacency', says Johnson
Boris Johnson has recorded an interview for broadcasters at the vaccination centre he has been visiting in Bristol. (See 2.08pm.) Here are the main points.
- Johnson said the escalation of the vaccination programme should not encourage “false complacency”. He said Prof Chris Whitty was right this morning to say the country was at a perilous moment. He said:
My worry is, and Chris’s worry is, that this is the moment when that degree of false confidence, false complacency, and that when you look at what has happened in the NHS that complacency is not merited.
- He said now was the time for “maximum vigilance” and “maximum observance of the rules”.
- He did not rule out toughening the lockdown rules. He said:
We’re going to keep the rules under constant review. Where we have to tighten them, we will. But we have rules in place already which, if they are properly followed, we believe can make a huge, huge difference ...
And of course, if we feel that things are not being properly observed, then we may have to do more. But far, far better for people to obey the rules that we have than simply to promulgate new rules.
- He commended the TV reporter who asked him to justify why he had travelled from London to Bristol for the visit when government advice was to stay at home where possible. Johnson said people were allowed to travel for work, and he was doing his job. But he went on:
But I like the spirit [in] which you’re asking the question. Everybody should be asking themselves whether they need to be leaving home, whether they need to be doing something that could actually end up spreading the disease.
- Johnson said that 40% of people over the age of 80 in England, and 23% of elderly care home residents, had now had their first dose of the vaccine.
Johnson was not asked about his cycle trip to the Olympic Park yesterday. (See 1.48pm.)
Updated
The Downing Street lobby briefing was also attended by Allegra Stratton, the prime minister’s new press secretary, who was there to handle political questions not appropriate for the civil servant spokesman. She was asked for a response to Sir Keir Starmer’s call for the vaccination programme to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. (See 12.35pm.) She replied:
My understanding is that at the moment there’s not a clamour for appointments late into the night or early in the morning. If that were to change, then it’s something the NHS could well consider.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, the prime minister’s spokesman was also asked to clarify whether taking a drink with you while going for a walk with someone, or sitting on a park bench, were allowed within the rules. As Pippa Crerar and Dan Bloom from the Daily Mirror point out, he did not give a very clear answer.
The PM's official spokesman is unable to say if going for a walk with somebody with a coffee, or sitting on a park bench, are against the rules.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) January 11, 2021
"Let me take that one away and find out".
Q: Is drinking a takeaway tea while you walk illegal?
— Dan Bloom (@danbloom1) January 11, 2021
No10: “Takeaways are permitted so cafes and restaurants are permitted to provide takeaways. We’ve said people are permitted to exercise once a day. But exercise should be exercise and it shouldn’t be used for socialising.” 🤷
The Department of Health and Social Care was similarly evasive when I asked on behalf of a reader earlier. (See 12.49am.)
This particular query has been prompted by the Derbyshire police decision last week to categorise hot drinks being carried by two women fined for going on a walk five miles from home as a picnic. Those fines are now being reviewed.
Updated
Johnson under pressure to explain why he went for cycle ride seven miles from No 10
The Evening Standard has a good exclusive today. It reports that Boris Johnson went for a cycle ride around the Olympic Park on Sunday, seven miles from Downing Street.
Sophia Sleigh seems to have got the story in the way some of the best scoops happen - by being in the right place at the right time.
99.9% sure Boris Johnson just cycled past me in the Olympic park with an entourage of fellow security cyclists. Complete with his TfL hat on🚴♂️
— Sophia Sleigh (@SophiaSleigh) January 10, 2021
Alas, I did not have time to ask him my follow up question...
This is awkward. As government officials were telling the Guardian only this morning (see 12.49pm), the advice is that when exercising you should you “should stay local in the village, town, or part of the city where you live”.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesman did not have an answer as to why the PM thought that going seven miles away from home was consistent with the spirit of the rules - although he indicated that he would come back with a proper response later.
Scottish Covid hospital numbers now 'quite a bit above peak in April', says Sturgeon
At her daily coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, announced the latest Covid figures for Scotland.
- Sturgeon said that there were now 1,664 people in hospital in Scotland with coronavirus. That’s 126 up from yesterday, and it means that Covid hospital numbers are now “quite a bit above the peak of the first wave back in April”, he said.
- She said there had been 1,782 further cases, and that 11.5% of tests carried out were positive. This is still very high, but the seven-day rolling average for new cases does seem to have peaked last week, and now it is going down. Here is the latest chart from the Scottish government’s dashboard.
- She said that one further death had been recorded - but she pointed out that death figures are always very low on a Monday because registration offices close over the weekend.
- She said that 163,377 people in Scotland have now received their first dose of either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine.
Updated
The businessman Sir Richard Branson has revealed that his mother has died at the age of 96 having had Covid. He has written about her here.
I’m sorry to share that, sadly like a lot of people’s mums and dads right now in these days of Covid, my mum Eve has also passed away. Rather than mourn her loss, I wanted to celebrate her wonderful life & the joy she brought to so many https://t.co/i7rHAnBtBD pic.twitter.com/iDGASlAS0M
— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) January 11, 2021
At a news conference in Cardiff Vaughan Gething, the Welsh government’s health minister, has set out the vaccine timetable for Wales. Here are the three milestones.
By mid-February – all care home residents and staff; frontline health and social care staff; everyone over 70 and everyone who is clinically extremely vulnerable will have been offered vaccination.
By the spring – vaccination will have been offered to all the other phase one priority groups. This is everyone over 50 and everyone who is at-risk because they have an underlying health condition.
By the autumn – vaccination will have been offered to all other eligible adults in Wales, in line with any guidance issued by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
These deadlines are the same as those set for England by the UK government, as Matt Hancock, the health secretary, confirmed in his interview with Andrew Marr yesterday.
The Welsh government has also published a Covid vaccination plan setting out details of how vaccines will be delivered in Wales.
The latest figures show 86,039 people in Wales have received their first dose of the Covid vaccine, with 79 people receiving both doses.
At the press conference Gething said:
The Covid vaccines offer our best hope of a return to the normality we are looking forward to after such a difficult year, which has turned all our lives upside down.
Delivering this vaccination programme to the people in Wales is a huge task, but an enormous amount of work is going on to make it a success.
We are making good progress with thousands more people being vaccinated every day.
Over the coming week we will see the programme pick up further speed with more clinics opening and the first vaccines to be given by pharmacists.
Updated
Here is a question from below the line.
I’ve put this to the Department of Health (which draws up the lockdown restrictions). I did not get a formal reply, but a source told me:
The term ‘local area’ in this context has not been legally defined. However, people should be sensible about this - if you do leave home for a permitted reason, you should stay local in the village, town, or part of the city where you live - unless there is a justifiable reason not to do so (for example, you need to travel further for work or to avoid harm).
As for whether it is permissible to go out with a drink in a container, the source just said that Matt Hancock, the health secretary, yesterday stressed the importance of following the spirit of the rules as well as the letter of them.
James Brokenshire, the security minister, has said he will be taking leave after doctors found a recurrence of a tumour in his right lung. The MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup previously stood down from his role as Northern Ireland secretary in January 2018 to undergo surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from his right lung. This morning he posted this on Twitter.
Frustratingly, have a recurrence of a tumour in one part of my right lung. Taking leave for curative surgery. In good hands with the fantastic #NHS team who’ve been looking after me. Keeping positive and blessed to have the love of Cathy & the kids to support me through this. pic.twitter.com/sNChNHXodQ
— James Brokenshire (@JBrokenshire) January 11, 2021
Updated
Keir Starmer's speech and Q&A - Summary and analysis
You can read the full text of Sir Keir Starmer’s speech, on “securing the economy for families during lockdown”, here. It wasn’t a big, visionary speech about how Britain could be transformed post-Covid (astonishingly, I don’t think anyone very prominent in British politics has really tried that yet), and it did not contain anything new on policy, but in terms of tone and language, some of it was quite striking.
Here are the main points from the speech and the Q&A.
- Starmer suggested the government should tighten the lockdown restrictions within the next 24 hours. Echoing what he told The Andrew Marr Show yesterday, he said in his Q&A that he thought tougher restrictions were probably needed. Today he also said there was urgency to this. He said:
I think we are going to have to look in the next 24 hours or so, what are the other measures that would be put in place ... and then all pull together to support those measures if they’re needed because the numbers, as everybody knows, are still heading in the wrong direction.
- He stressed his credentials as a “family man” - and by implication Labour’s commitment to the family. He said:
Family has always been incredibly important to me.
It meant everything to my parents that I was able to get on, to go into law and to lead a public service – the Crown Prosecution Service.
It meant everything to me that the NHS was there to care for my mum when she desperately needed it.
And it means everything to me now that I have a loving family of my own.
Starmer also stressed that, when thinking about the economy, he focused on its effect on families, “people worried about paying the bills, covering childcare, or coping with insecure work”. Two of the most successful election winning prime ministers in recent years, Tony Blair and David Cameron, also liked presenting themselves as family men, and this passage sounded like something they could easily have said. But how much this all matters, though, is another question. Boris Johnson won the last election handsomely even though his credentials as a family man a rather more tarnished; according Tom Bower’s broadly favourable biography published recently, at times Johnson was not even on speaking terms with his children because of their feelings about his treatment of their mother, Marina Wheeler.
- Starmer called for economic measures to help families during the lockdown. He said parents should have a right to request paid, flexible furlough. He also urged the government to abandon the planned cut in universal credit, to prevent council tax increases, to increase pay for key workers and to extend the ban on evictions.
- He praised the role played by business in the pandemic.
- He proposed a new “national contract”. In return for people agreeing to stay at home now, the government would deliver on its priorities, including the vaccination programme.
- He suggested the vaccination programme should operate 24 hours a day, seven day a week. He said:
We need a round-the-clock vaccine programme, 24-hours a day, 7 days-a-week. In every village and town, every high street and every GP surgery. We all need to play our part.
Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, also floated the possibility of a 24-hour service in an interview this morning. (See 10.08am.) Given what is likely to be the very limited enthusiasm for getting vaccinated at, say, 4am, it may be that Starmer and Zahawi were being more aspirational rather than literal with this proposal.
- Starmer urged people to volunteer to help with the vaccination programme.
- He accused Johnson of “serial incompetence” in his handling of the pandemic. He said:
I’m afraid the prime minister and the government have been found wanting at every turn. Even in the best of times, you can’t be indecisive in government. In the worst of times, indecision can be fatal. Every time there’s a big decision to make, Boris Johnson gets there too late ....
The British people will forgive many things. They know the pandemic is difficult. But they also know serial incompetence when they see it – and they know when a prime minister simply isn’t up to the job.
- Starmer said that after Covid he wanted Britain to be “the best country to grow up in and the best country to grow old in” and that he would be setting out his vision for “that better future” in the months ahead.
- He said that he has spoken to Tony Blair about Covid - but sidestepped a question about whether he would give him a job in a future Labour government.
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Q: Have you spoken to Tony Blair about Covid? Would you give him a job in a Labour government?
Starmer says he has spoken to many people about Covid, including Tony Blair.
Q: How do you want to see debt reduced in the long term?
Starmer says in the long term this will have to be addressed.
And that’s it. The Q&A is over.
I’ll post a summary of the main lines from this, and from the speech, shortly.
Q: Should people have to wear masks outdoors?
Starmer says he would defer to the experts on this. But he says he thinks within the next 24 hours the government will have to consider new restrictions.
Q: Would you favour reducing the number of pupils whose parents are key workers in school?
Starmer says he is aware of reports that schools are much busier than last year, even though the rules are the same. He says he thinks this will have to be looked at.
Q: Tony Blair has been talking to Matt Hancock about how to handle Covid. Do you welcome that? Would you take advice from him, and would you like to see him back in frontline politics?
Starmer says everyone needs to step up. The more advice the government gets, the better. He says Blair’s thinktank has done a lot of work on this.
Starmer congratulates the questioner, the Sun’s Kate Ferguson, on her recent promotion.
Q: In most cases people are sticking to the rule. But they have been given more freedom than in the first lockdown. What other restrictions would you favour, apart from closing nurseries?
Starmer says he would like to see the scientific evidence on the case for keeping nurseries open.
As for other restrictions, he says he is surprised that people buying a house are allowed to view a property. He says the situation is worse than in the first wave, but the lockdown restrictions are lighter.
Starmer says he wants the government to succeed with its vaccination programme.
Starmer says there is an issue about public borrowing to be addressed in the longer term. But the priority now is to protect families, he says.
Starmer's Q&A
Sir Keir Starmer is now taking questions.
Q: Do you think the restrictions should be tightened?
Starmer says there is probably more that could be done. He suggests nurseries should be closed. But the most important thing is for people to comply with the stay-at-home rules. We need to “get back to the spirit of March”, he says.
He says he would like to see the PM doing daily press conferences.
This week and the next could be the darkest, he says.
An NHS hospital’s oxygen supply has reached a “critical situation” as staff treat a rising number of Covid-19 patients, PA Media reports.
Mid and South Essex NHS foundation trust said in a letter to staff that the amount of oxygen used to treat patients at Southend hospital should be reduced. The document, shown to the BBC, said:
We have reached a critical situation with oxygen supply.
It is imperative we use oxygen safely and efficiently.
All patients should have a target saturation of 88-92%. Patients with a saturation above 92% which are on oxygen should have their oxygen weaned within the target range.
I can assure all that maintaining saturations within this target range is safe and no patient will come to harm as a result.
It is imperative that this is acted on immediately.
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Hospitals in Northern Ireland have narrowly averted declaring a major incident after off-duty staff responded to an appeal to report for work.
Last weekend was the busiest 48 hours for the region’s hospitals since the pandemic began and the pressure is expected to intensify, with all six health trusts warning that the number of Covid patients could double by the third week of January.
“This is not a simple matter of putting up more beds. We need the staff to care for the increased number of patients,” they said in a statement. “Pre-existing staffing pressures and staff absence because of Covid, and other reasons, mean that those staff simply aren’t there.”
A quarter of hospital patients have Covid-19, a proportion that is predicted to rise to a half. Hospitals are at or near full capacity and some are cancelling cancer operations.
Hospitals in the Republic of Ireland, where coronavirus infections have exploded since Christmas, are also under severe strain.
One estimates suggests the number of Covid-linked deaths could exceed 100 per day, far higher than the peak of the first wave last spring.
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Jacqueline Corney, a social care worker from north Somerset, was among the first to receive her jab at the mass vaccination centre in Bristol.
Corney, 56, who had the Oxford jab at the Ashton Gate sports stadium, said:
I feel privileged to be on the list to get it. I’m really happy and I think everyone should get it when they’re asked.
It went fine. There are lots of people in there and they all know what they are doing. It was a case of going in, they ask questions about allergies. Then you go in for your jab. It’s all wonderful. I’m over the moon. I work with people with special needs so I’m quite high on the list.
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Sir Keir Starmer will be delivering his speech on the economy and families shortly. There is a live feed here. I won’t be covering it minute by minute, but I will post the highlights when I’ve read the text, and I will be monitoring the Q&A.
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Christina McAnea becomes first woman to lead Unison
An official who has represented health and social care workers during the Covid-19 crisis has been elected as the first woman to lead the UK’s biggest trade union, PA Media reports. Christina McAnea succeeds Dave Prentis, who is retiring after 20 years as general secretary of Unison.
Glasgow-born McAnea won almost half the votes in a ballot of members, beating three other candidates. In her role as assistant general secretary at Unison, she has been responsible in recent years for collective bargaining, negotiations and equalities strategy, including health and safety, pensions and procurement.
McAnea easily beat the other three candidates in the contest. She is seen as broadly supportive of Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership of Labour.
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Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images
Here is our main story about the Prof Chris Whitty’s media appearances this morning.
And here are some more lines from what Whitty said when he was on Radio 5 Live.
- Whitty stressed that having restrictions in place next winter was not inevitable. At a press conference last week he said some restrictions might still be needed this time next year. But, when asked about this, he insisted it was not a firm prediction.
I didn’t say that there would be [restrictions], I said that it’s possible that there might be, because I think it’s important people understand all the possibilities. There may well not be.
If we have a very effective vaccination programme, if the vaccine works for a long period of time and prevents transmission, and in particular if everybody takes it up as they’re offered it, then my hope is that we will need minimal or no restrictions in due course.
- He said it was possible to get coronavirus a second time, or after having been vaccinated, but that the risks from this were very much reduced. He said:
The risk of getting Covid a second time if you’ve had it a first time are substantially reduced, probably between 80% and 90% at least over the first six months.
We are confident it reduces the risk but it doesn’t reduce it to zero, so reinfection is a possibility and the same will be true after vaccination. Reinfections will occur but at a much lower rate.
- He said he was “confident” that vaccines could be re-engineered if they prove to be ineffective against new variants of coronavirus. He said:
There will be some degree of mutation around the vaccine but much more slowly, probably, than flu.
One of the good things is that new vaccine technologies have been used for this which are much quicker to turn around.
So I am confident that, if a new variant came in that was significantly different and was able to get around the new vaccine, then we would be able to re-engineer it and revaccinate.
- He said that the UK was not yet at the peak of this wave of the pandemic.
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Minister confirms restrictions being reviewed amid concerns people mixing too much
Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, was also giving interviews this morning, and on the Today programme he confirmed that ministers are reviewing the current restrictions. He said:
We don’t want to use tougher measures, the lockdown is tough, schools are shut, but it is important to remember this virus loves social interactions.
We’re reviewing all the restrictions, but these are pretty tough at the moment. I am worried about supermarkets and people actually wearing masks and following the one-way system and making sure when it’s at capacity they wait outside the supermarket.
I’m worried about some of the pictures I’ve seen of social interactions in parks, if you have to exercise you can go out for exercise only.
According to today’s Daily Telegraph, ministers are particularly keen to get supermarkets to take the rules more seriously. “[Supermarkets] will be reminded they should implement one-way systems, and that customers should be made to wear face coverings and follow social distancing rules, it is expected,” the paper (paywall) reports.
In another interview Zahawi said that Israel has been vaccinating people at the rate of one person every four minutes at its vaccination centres, and that he hoped the UK ones would achieve the same sort of rate.
But he also claimed the service was willing to work 24-hours per day on vaccinations if necessary. He said:
If we need to go to 24-hour work we will absolutely go 24 hours a day to make sure we vaccinate as quickly as we can.
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Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS leaders, told Sky News this morning that the country’s test and trace system was not working properly. He said:
We need the rate of infection to go down well in advance of the benefit of the vaccination programme.
We still, for the last few weeks now, have seen growing incidences of infection in our communities.
We’ve struggled as a country to have a test, trace and isolate system that works effectively - it just doesn’t work as well as it does in countries like Australia and various other parts of the world. That has to be fixed.
(Mortimer did not specify whether he was talking about England or the UK, but the confederation mostly represents English NHS trusts, and England’s test and trace system is different, and more widely criticised, than the ones in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.)
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We’re getting two Commons statements this afternoon: one from Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, on the economy, and one from Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, on the vaccination programme.
Two oral statements today from 3:30pm
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) January 11, 2021
1. Economic Update - @RishiSunak / @AnnelieseDodds
2. Covid-19 Update - @nadhimzahawi
Here are the main points from Prof Chris Whitty’s interviews with BBC Breakfast and the Today programme.
- Whitty said that there might be a case for tightening the regulation, but that the most important thing was for people to minimise their contacts with others. He said:
Ministers are always looking at whether they should adjust restrictions in either direction but at this moment, obviously, definitely not relaxing them ...
In a sense tinkering with the rules may be useful, but the far more important thing is that everybody abides by the spirit of the rules that are there at the moment.
Everybody knows what they need to do. And I think that’s the key thing - minimise the number of contacts.
- He said any contact with people from another household posed a risk. He said:
The key thing to understand is that when you meet people from another household under any circumstances - and they’re very often your friends, your family - but those are the kind of situations where the virus is passed on. It doesn’t care who you are, it doesn’t care whether they’re your friends. If you meet someone from another household, the virus has an opportunity to be transmitted.
- He said there might be advantages from wearing a mask outside if people are in close proximity to others, for example in a queue, but he said the risk from someone like a jogger running past was “extremely low”. But he stressed that it was best to stay at home if necessary.
- He said people should avoid sending their children to nurseries if they can.
- He justified the decision not to include teachers in the current priority groups for vaccination, which cover all over-50s, health and social care workers and young people with serious underlying health conditions. He said teachers were not at greater risk of suffering from Covid than people in other professions.
- He said that he had always been “deeply sceptical” of the idea that relying on herd immunity could provide a solution. He said the initial discussion on this last year were based on a misunderstanding. Relying on herd immunity as the solution would have led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, he said. And he said with some diseases herd immunity never happened. But he said vaccination herd immunity was different.
Herd immunity given by vaccination is a different issue, and if we get to a point where actually a very high proportion of the population have been vaccinated, and if the vaccine prevents transmission - we don’t know that for sure, but it’s highly likely to have some effects, probably large effects, on transmission - and if it lasts for a reasonable length of time, then we may get to a stage where so many people are vaccinated, and so many people are immune, that the remaining small number of people who are not vaccinated are protected by that wider group. That is what people mean by herd immunity.
But I don’t think we are are anywhere near that at the moment.
This question, from Today’s Justin Webb, was prompted by an interview the Imperial College epidemiologist Neil Ferguson gave to the Sunday Times at the weekend. Ferguson argued that there would be some herd immunity impact because so many people have now had the virus. He told the paper (paywall):
I think we will see growth rates slow. We may see a decline, and that may be slightly aided by the fact that there is quite a lot of herd immunity in places like London.
Maybe 25% or 30% of the population has now been infected in the first wave and second wave. So that adds to the reduction of transmission.
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Chris Whitty says people should realise 'we're now at worst point of coronavirus epidemic'
Good morning. It’s a sign of how serious the coronavirus crisis is that Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, has been sent on to the airwaves this morning to address the nation. Whitty does not normally give interviews, but he’s a familiar figure from the No 10 press conferences, where his normal role is to provide some sort of “reality check” counterpoint to the prime minister’s heady optimism.
This morning Whitty is reality checking the nation as a whole. This quote, from his interview on the Today programme, sums up his message.
We’ve got to be very clear that we are now at the worst point of this epidemic for the UK. In the future we will have the vaccine, but the numbers at the moment are higher than they were in the previous peak by some distance. We’ve 30,000 people who are in the NHS, and that is still rising ...
We’re now at a situation where in the UK as a whole around one in 50 people is infected and in London it’s around one in 30, in parts of London it’s around one in 20. So there’s a very high chance that if you meet someone unnecessarily they will have Covid.
I will post more from the Whitty’s media appearances shortly,
Here is the agenda for the day.
11am: Sir Keir Starmer gives a speech on the economy and families.
12pm: Downing Street is expected to hold its daily lobby briefing.
12.15pm: Vaughan Gething, the Welsh government’s health minister, holds a press briefing. He is due to publish the Welsh government’s Covid vaccination plan.
12.15pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, holds her
daily coronavirus briefing.
2.30pm: Kate Bingham, head of the government’s vaccine taskforce, and other senior officials give evidence to the Commons public accounts committee about Covid vaccine planning.
5pm: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is expected to hold a press conference. He will be promoting the UK government’s vaccines delivery plan being published today.
Politics Live is now doubling up as the UK coronavirus live blog and, given the way the Covid crisis eclipses everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we will be covering non-Covid political stories too, and when they seem more important or more interesting, they will take precedence.
Here is our global coronavirus live blog.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
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