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Coronavirus UK live news: calls for urgent help for self-employed as tighter lockdown could come in future | |
(32 minutes later) | |
Rolling coverage of the latest UK developments in the coronavirus crisis | Rolling coverage of the latest UK developments in the coronavirus crisis |
Two supermarket vans were destroyed in “sickening” arson attacks in Bristol and police riot vans were called out soon after Boris Johnson announced the new restrictions. | |
The delivery vans were destroyed in the attack outside an Iceland store in Arnside Road, Southmead, on Monday night. | |
Richard Walker, managing director of the retailer, said: | |
In a statement, Iceland said police riot vans were called out and youths threw missiles at the police as they tried to disperse them. Later in the evening, the two home delivery vans were set alight and the fire brigade attended to put out the fire. | |
Avon and Somerset Police were also investigating other incidents that took place in Southmead and Henbury including criminal damage and a car being set on fire. | |
Chief Inspector Mark Runacres said: | |
According to Downing Street, only four people attended today’s cabinet meeting in person - and two of those were officials. The only ministers there were Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock, the health secretary. | |
The two officials present were Sir Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, and Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser. | |
All other ministers participated via secure video conferencing. | |
This is the first time this has happened, No 10 says. | |
Funerals are one of the very few public gatherings still possible during the UK lockdown but many local authorities are taking steps to limit the number of mourners. | |
In Greater Manchester, Salford has become the first council to announce it will only be allowing 10 people per funeral at council-run crematoria until further notice.Councillor David Lancaster, lead member for environment and community safety, said: | |
Dr Giri Shankar, incident director for the outbreak response at Public Health Wales, said 60 more people had tested positive bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 478. There has been one further death, bringing the total to 17. | |
Dr Shankar said: | |
In the Commons opposition MPs have been generally praised Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, for the measures announced last week to protect workers from the risk of losing their jobs, but they are insistent that he must do more to help the self-employed. | |
This is what John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said. | |
This is what the Labour MP Wes Streeting said to Sunak. | |
And this is from the Labour MP Yvette Cooper. | |
Agencies recruiting British fruit and vegetable pickers to replace seasonal workers from abroad have been overwhelmed by thousands of applications. | |
Normally, 99.9% of the 80,000 workers come from abroad, mostly from eastern Europe. But travel restrictions and anxieties about the coronavirus pandemic have led many workers to cancel. | |
Just a few dozen British pickers have been employed in the past but the Hops, Concordia and Fruitful Jobs agencies have had 8,000 applications in the last week. “The whole industry needs even more though so we will keep the form open,” said a Hops spokeswoman. | |
Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers Union, said: | |
“There are jobs available,” she told the BBC’s Today programme. | |
Hops operations director Sarah Boparan said: | |
Workers are paid at least the minimum wage and Hops said all the farms they work with are following the correct procedures around safe working conditions during the coronavirus outbreak. | |
Recruitment of seasonal workers had already been impacted by Brexit, with farmers forced to leave tonnes of crops to rot last year as it struggled to find staff. | |
The Government Equalities Office (GEO) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) have taken the decision to suspend enforcement of the gender pay gap reporting deadlines for this year. | |
In a joint statement, the minister for women & equalities, Liz Truss, and the EHRC chair, David Isaac, said: | |
In the Commons Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, also told MPs that he was “determined” to find a means of helping self-employed people who were losing work because of the coronavirus crisis. But he said it was “incredibly complicated” finding a way of designing a scheme that would help those in need, while not giving money to people who did not need it. | |
He says the Treasury had prioritised helping the 90% of workers who are employed. | |
Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is taking questions in the Commons. In response to a question from Labour’s John McDonnell, Sunak has just said that people on zero-hours contracts are eligible for help under the job retention scheme announced by Sunak on Friday last week. | |
Workers on zero-hours contracts are eligible for help under the job retention scheme, Sunak says. | |
But Sunak also confirmed that people who were having their hours reduced would not get help. He said that was not possible under the “furlough” scheme he announced last week. | |
Here is a lovely video of NHS workers in Belfast being applauded and handed bouquets of flowers by Tesco staff as they arrived to do their shopping. | Here is a lovely video of NHS workers in Belfast being applauded and handed bouquets of flowers by Tesco staff as they arrived to do their shopping. |