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Budget 2020: Sunak's plans for current spending 'nothing like as generous as they appear', says IFS - live news
Electoral Commission calls for local elections to be postponed as a result of coronavirus - live news
(32 minutes later)
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
Jeremy Corbyn’s successor as Labour leader will now be announced at a scaled-back event as the party postpones and alters meetings due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Press Association reports. The PA story goes on:
Vallance says the timing is critical: if you tell people to stay at home too early, they get fed up with this at the point where you need them to stay at home.
Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to announce the outcome of today’s Cobra meeting before Boris Johnson (see 3.33pm) has gone down badly with London, BuzzFeed’s Alex Wickham reports.
On closing schools, he says for this to be effective, closures would have to last from 13 to 16 weeks. He says children would, in practice, keep mixing with each other during that period. And they might get sent to stay with grandparents, which could increase the risk, he says.
Earlier I quoted the Institute for Fiscal Studies saying yesterday’s budget was less generous on current spending than it appeared. (See 1.56pm.) These two charts from the detailed presentation on public services (pdf) explain why in more detail.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, is speaking now.
This chart shows how, in real terms, day-to-day spending on public services will be higher in 2024-25 than it was in 2009-10, at the end of the last Labour government. But there’s a catch, or rather two. First, if you look at day-to-day spending on public services per head, it is no higher than it was in 2009-10 (because the population has got bigger). And, second, if you take out health, which received a sizeable, long-term spending increase under Theresa May, real-terms spending on everything else is lower than at the end of the Labour government, both overall (7% lower) and per person (14% lower).
This is a new disease, he says. He says no one has immunity to it.
But the IFS also says these figures are potentially misleading, for two reasons. First, they include the £11bn a year that the UK will save because it won’t have to make annual payments to the EU - but they do not take into account the £7-8bn a year that the EU used to spend in the UK. And, second, they include an extra £5.5bn a year that the government is spending because of changes to the rules on employer pension contributions. The IFS argues that taking out these figures allows for a more reliable comparison with the past, and on that basis it has produced a chart with adjusted figures (see below).
He says it looks as if the UK is on a trajectory about four weeks behind Italy.
On this measure, day-to-day public spending in real terms will still be higher in 2024-25 than in 2009-10, but only 5% higher, not 9% higher. But day-to-day spending per person ends up being 4% lower in 2024-25 in real terms than in 2009-10, overall spending excluding health is 12% lower, and spending per person excluding health is 19% lower.
He shows a slide showing a peak. This shows the pattern of an infection, he says.
Sturgeon is now taking questions.
He says it starts with very low numbers. He says the number of infections at the moment is likely to be between 5,000 and 10,000.
Q: What sort of gatherings do you want to cancel?
Then the number of infections rise steeply, he says.
Ones that put pressure on emergency services, she says. So that would not mean church events. But it would mean sports events.
He says the government wants to do two things: to delay the peak, and to push the peak down.
She says, as the weeks go on, the emergency services are going to come under growing pressure. That is why she wants to ease the pressure on them.
He says delaying the peak pushes it into the summer, when respiratory diseases are less common.
She says she will publish further details in due course.
He says it is not possible to stop everyone getting it. And it is not desirable either, he says. He says you want people to pick up immunity.
Sturgeon says the government’s focus is on seeking to delay the spread of Covid-19.
He says the disease seems to come in two phases: an early, mildish phase, and then a second phase, where the elderly and people with underlying conditions are vulnerable.
Sturgeon says moving from “contain” to “delay” means that anyone with coronavirus-type symptoms will be advised to stay at home for seven days.
Johnson says he wants to address older people in particular. For most people this is a mild illness, but he knows they are vulnerable.
That means people who have a fever, or a persistent cough, she says.
He says he wants to tell them that the government will do all it can “to help you and your family”.
She says those people do not have to see a doctor, unless their condition gets worse.
The government is not just helping the economy, he says. He says he wants to stress that it is helping families.
She says the UK government is not advising schools to close at the moment. But it is advising schools to cancel overseas trips.
He says he wants to end with two familiar messages.
And she says it is important for people to understand that, if schools were to close, it would not just be for a week or two. It would be until the disease had passed its peak, which would mean until the summer, she says.
First, it is vital to wash your hands.
She also restates her position on mass gatherings. She says this is just a Scottish government position, not a UK government position. She repeats the point she made to the Scottish parliament earlier (see 12.57pm), when she said she wanted to cancel mass gatherings primarily to ease the pressures on the emergency services.
And, second, the country will get through this, just as it has got through other situations like this.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is holding a press briefing now. She says she will be talking about the outcome of the Cobra emergency committee, which has just concluded. She participated in the meeting, although only remotely; she has not been in London.
Johnson says this will cause disruption across the country for many months.
She is jumping the gun on Boris Johnson, who is due to hold a press briefing later.
He says he wants to urge people not to call 111, but to use the internet to get information if they can.
These are from the Telegraph’s Gordon Rayner.
Johnson says he is not closing schools now.
The Scottish Green party has cancelled its spring conference, which was due to take place on Saturday 28 March, because of the coronavirus outbreak after the number of cases declared in Scotland jumped to 60 on Thursday.
He says the advice is that his could do more harm than good.
Ross Greer MSP, a co-chair of the party’s executive, said:
But the situation may change, he says.
The conference was due to be held at the Adam Smith theatre in Kirkcaldy, the birth place of the legendary 18th century economist.
Johnson says the government is considering banning large events.
Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, promised to unveil a bill on Wednesday next week to introduce a statutory presumption against prosecution for veterans in the Commons, as he made a statement about mental health in the armed forces in the morning.
He says that won’t necessarily reduce the spread. But that would ease the pressure on the emergency services, he says.
The minister said he was meeting a pledges to legislate in this area, but would not say how or whether the measures would apply to Northern Ireland, where many violent incidents from the time of the Troubles are only now beginning to be investigated by legal authorities.
Johnson says tomorrow, if you have coronavirus symptoms, you should stay home for at least seven days.
“The days of lawyers running amok in our services and in our veterans community, trying to rewrite history, in order to make money, are over,” Mercer added.
He says people over 70 with underlying medical conditions are being advised to avoid going on cruises.
The party’s election manifesto promised to “introduce new legislation to tackle the vexatious legal claims that undermine our armed forces”.
And he says schools are being advised to cancel overseas trips.
In the last parliament Penny Mordaunt, the then defence secretary, proposed a statutory presumption against prosecutions against veterans for incidents taking place 10 or more years ago, covering Iraq, Afghanistan and any other armed conflict overseas - but left open the question of Northern Ireland, prompting pressure from Conservative backbenchers for it to be included.
Boris Johnson is starting his press conference.
Mercer was challenged by newly elected Alliance party MP Stephen Farry, who voiced concern about the impending legislation. He said:
He says he has just chaired a Cobra meeting. They have done what they can to contain coronavirus, he says.
Farry warned that some veterans could get “unnecessary protection, warping the rule of law” in relation to historic claims as a result.
The true number of cases is higher, “perhaps much higher”, than the figures suggest, he says.
In reply Mercer said that when to comes to Northern Ireland “I tread down this path with utmost care”.
He says this is the worst public health crisis for a general. It is much more serious than flu, he says. He goes on:
The Telegraph’s science editor Sarah Knapton has a read-out from the measures being announced by the government.
Boris Johnson is about to hold a press conference to announce the decisions taken by the Corbra emergency committee this afternoon. He will appear alongside Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser.
The Electoral Commission is saying that this year’s local elections should be postponed.
The final decision is up to the government, but it would be embarrassing for ministers to ignore the commission’s advice on this issue.
