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UK coronavirus live: Matt Hancock says MPs will get votes on significant lockdown measures if possible
UK coronavirus live: 'We will not hesitate to take further measures' if pandemic worsens, Johnson warns
(32 minutes later)
News updates: Commons debate whether to renew Coronavirus Act; UK records 7,108 more Covid cases as sharp increase sustained
MPs voting on whether to renew Coronavirus Act; UK records 7,108 more Covid cases as sharp increase sustained
MPs are voting on the Coronavirus Act motion now.
Q: What are the chances of more restrictions everywhere?
The debate was short - backbench speeches lasted just three minutes each - but it showed that the No 10 compromise has not satisfied all Conservatives. Sir Charles Walker said it was an “utter, utter disgrace” that MPs were getting just 90 minutes in total to debate such an important measure, and Sir Bernard Jenkin said the PM needed to take more notice of the views of his backbenchers.
Johnson says we know we can drive down the virus, because we did it before.
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, said:
He says a package of measures is in place, a combination of national rules and local ones. And there is tougher enforcement.
The government’s coronavirus dashboard has just been updated. Here are the key figures.
He says he hopes that, if people follow the guidance as before, then we can get the spread down.
The UK has recorded 7,108 new coronavirus cases. This is marginally lower than yesterday’s total (7,143), but it suggests the sharp increase in cases is being sustained. This is only the second time the daily case numbers been above 7,000, and this figure is higher than any recorded at the peak of the first wave in the spring. However, because there is far more testing taking place now than there was in March, April and May, these record case numbers do not mean that the prevalence of coronavirus in the community is comparable to what it was then. Other evidence suggests that overall case numbers are only smallish fraction of what they were in the spring.
He wants to do that while keeping the economy open and young people in education, he says.
The UK has recorded 71 further deaths - almost double the daily figure for a week ago (37). It takes the headline total number of deaths to 42,143. But this figure is an underestimate because it only counts people who have died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus. Overall more than 57,600 people have died from confirmed or suspected coronavirus in the UK.
Success will be judged in the days and weeks ahead, he says.
Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, is speaking in the Commons debate now. He welcomes what Matt Hancock said. He says the new approach will be in the interests of parliament and of government, and it should ensure people that important questions are addressed before new regulations are imposed.
Q: Your presentation last week was controversial. Do you still think cases are doubling every week?
Mark Harper, a former Tory chief whip, intervenes. He says what Hancock described (see 3.45pm) is exactly what Brady asked for in his amendment (see 9.37am), with the one exception that the word “possible” has replaced Brady’s word “practicable”.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said he was trying to get across three messages in his presentation last week.
Labour’s Chris Bryant asks Brady if he can explain what the new system actually involves.
He says he wanted to make the point that more cases could lead to more deaths, that case numbers were growing already, and that cases could double very quickly.
Brady says the government is talking about using commencement dates in regulations. Regulations would be introduced using the affirmative procedure (which is what happens now), but commencement dates for regulations would be set in the future, so the laws would only take effect after MPs have voted on them.
He says cases are going up, and the number of deaths is rising.
Under the current system, MPs do approve regulations, but any vote can take place up to 40 days after they have already come into force.
But he says it is much more likely that in April and March there were over 100,000 cases per day. So you cannot make a like for like comparison between the published figures then and the published figures now (which are higher).
Scotland’s higher education minister, Richard Lochead, has told the Holyrood parliament that his government was “never advised to keep students at home” while insisting that young people “are in no way to blame” for the current spike in infections across Scotland’s campuses.
Q: How are enforcement agencies going to stop people travelling from lockdown areas to non-lockdown areas?
Lochead insisted that bringing students back to campus – a move that has been sharply criticised by opposition parties, students bodies and some academics – was in line with scientific advice and that “there were no easy risk-free option”.
Johnson says people should look at the rules on the website.
He said that the Scottish government was advised that telling students to stay away from campuses would have “inflicted significant harm on them and the wider higher education sector in Scotland”.
But he does not want to go back to a national lockdown where people are told to stay at home, he says.
He also confirmed that 759 students had tested positive for Covid with “many more” self-isolating, adding that he expected to see more positive cases in the coming days.
Johnson is taking questions from members of the public.
And he said that he wants students “to have the option to return home safely for Christmas”. He said:
Q: What support is in place for young people?
Here is another Labour MP describing Matt Hancock’s concession as worthless.
Johnson says there is a package of support. He thanks students for how they are behaving. He says the Kickstart programme will help young people into work.
The government’s centralised approach to decision-making on lockdown restrictions is “unsustainable” and must urgently change before “the most difficult winter we’ve ever known in this country”, Andy Burnham has said.The mayor of Greater Manchester said the government’s approach had been “too driven from rooms in Whitehall” with little regard to the impact of decisions on communities.Calling for local leaders to be more involved in the decision-making process, Burnham said at a press conference:
And he wants to help young people retrain, as he set out yesterday, he says.
Burnham said one of the key issues was a lack of extra financial support for areas where restrictions have been imposed and that there should be an urgent review of the 10pm curfew on nightlife, which is “causing major harm to a hospitality industry that is already teetering on a cliff edge”. He added:
Whitty says his NHS colleagues wanted him to stress that the NHS is open for patients.
Burnham said the government should never impose local restrictions without proper financial support for residents, businesses and councils in those areas. It was “utterly wrong” that Bolton’s hospitality industry had not been offered Treasury support, beyond a payment of up to £1,500 every three weeks, despite being forced to go takeaway-only three weeks ago.He added: “We’ve had the health crisis and that continues but now we’re going to see the economic crisis break as well as a health crisis simultaneously because the redundancies are going to start if things stay as they are.”
Johnson underlines that point.
In the Coronavirus Act debate the Labour MP Chris Bryant said he thought Matt Hancock’s concession was worth “nothing” because it had not been written down. Hancock replied by saying Bryant would be able to read it in Hansard.
Whitty is now showing an animation illustrating how coronavirus spread in the spring, how it went down over the summer, and how it is coming back.
Hancock told MPs that one part of the Coronavirus Act was being dropped.
And Whitty says this slide shows hospital admission rates by region.
The act allowed people to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act on the basis of the opinion of just one doctor, not two. It also allowed the time limits for these orders to be extended.
The final slide shows admissions to intensive care. In some areas they are rising sharply, he says.
Hancock said that, even when the act was passed, he was not convinced this part was necessary. Now it will be dropped, he said. He said the government would introduce secondary legislation to remove this provision in the bill.
But he says there is no danger of the NHS being overwhelmed.
Here is the full quote from Matt Hancock on the new arrangements. He said:
Whitty says this slide shows hospital admission rates.
Hancock said he hoped that these new arrangements would be seen as a new convention.
Whitty says this slide shows positivity rates for under-21s.
Amongst the very young, rates are not rising. But amongst older people in this group, they are.
Whitty says some people think there are just more cases because more people are testing positive.
But this slide shows that is not the case, he says. It shows the positivity rate - the proportion of people testing positive. They are going up, he says.
Whitty says his slide shows where new cases are.
There is a particular increase amongst young people.
And in some areas the increase is accelerating, he says.
Whitty says the slide on the left shows the total rate of coronavirus. The dark the colour, the more there is. There is a particular concentration in the north and the Midlands.
And he says the slide on the right shows the increase in the last seven days. The more orange there is, the greater the increase. It is increasing particularly in the north-west and north-east.
Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, is speaking now. He is presenting slides.
He starts with one showing what happened in the spring.
This shows excess deaths.
Johnson says 14m people have already downloaded the app.
Johnson says some people think we should just give up the fight against coronavirus.
But he does not think that is what the nation wants, he says.
He says he will not allow the UK to be overwhelmed.
Johnson says the only way to tackle the virus is for everyone to follow the rules.
He thanks people for what they have done.
And he promises to provide “regular updates” himself through these press conferences.
Johnson says he would like to be able to say the new measures were already working.
But yesterday we had the biggest daily rise in cases, and cases are over 7,000 today.
He says in many ways the UK is better placed than it was in the spring.
He says 32bn items of PPE have been ordered. A four-month stockpile will be in place. By December UK suppliers will provide 70% of it, compared to just 1% before the pandemic.
Johnson says plans are being put in place to allow students home safely for Christmas.
Boris Johnson is starting his press conference.
He says new restrictions were introduced last week because the rise in case numbers implied more people were going to die.
Sixty two students at Newcastle’s two universities have tested positive for Covid.Northumbria and Newcastle Universities said in a statement:
There were 705 new cases of Covid in Newcastle over the last seven days, up from 393 the week before. That gives the city an infection rate of 233 per 100,000 people, more than Bolton and far above the English average of 51.
