Coronavirus UK live: No 10 unable to say when contact-tracing app ready for roll-out

Close to 100 of the UK’s leading creative figures have signed a letter calling for an urgent government intervention to save Britain’s performing arts sector from imminent ruin.

Our colleagues Mark Brown and Lanre Bakare report that Phoebe Waller-Bridge, James McAvoy, Sharon D Clarke, Tom Stoppard, Wendell Pierce, Emma Rice and Andrew Scott are among the names backing the letter warning of the threat facing theatre, opera and dance amid the coronavirus crisis.

An extract reads:

British theatre is on the brink of ruin.

Theatre is one of the UK’s most dazzling success stories. In all its forms, whether drama, musical theatre, opera or dance, British theatre is a world-class cultural and economic force with productions filling venues from Broadway to Beijing.

The pandemic has brought theatre to its knees. Theatres do not have the money to operate viably with physical distancing. It is difficult to see venues opening before the end of the year.

The industry is asking the government to continue the job retention scheme, establish an emergency relief fund and come up with a new package of support for the army of freelancers who help create so much of the sector’s work.

Most UK theatres have been closed since mid-March as the country began to lock down to curb the spread of coronavirus, with at least four saying they will not reopen. Others are beginning to make redundancies. As they burn through cash reserves, about three-quarters of venues say they will have run out of money by Christmas.

The full story is here.

In the latest instalment of the Politics Weekly podcast, Jonathan Freedland and Frances Perraudin look at the latest in a series of government U-turns. Why did Boris Johnson decide to drag his feet on the issue of making sure children in England are fed? And does this signal the end of embarrassing U-turns? Listen to the episode here:

In a statement about the collision outside parliament involving the prime minister’s car (see 3.11pm), the Metropolitan police say a man was “arrested at the scene for offences under section 5 of the Public Order Act and for obstructing the highway”.

The DHSC said 42,153 people have now died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Tuesday. That is a rise of 184 from 41,969 the day before.

The government figures don’t include all deaths involving Covid-19 across the UK, which is thought to have passed 53,000.

The DHSC also said in the 24-hour period up to 9am on Wednesday, 140,359 tests were carried out or dispatched, with 1,115 positive results. Overall, a total of 7,121,976 tests have been carried out and 299,251 cases have been confirmed positive.

The figure for the number of people tested has been “temporarily paused to ensure consistent reporting” across all methods of testing.

The opposition parties have condemned Boris Johnson’s decision to spend £900,000 repainting the RAF Voyager plane used by ministers in union jack colours. (See 2.57pm.)

This is from Louise Haigh, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary.

When families across the country are worried about their jobs, health and the education of their children, they will rightly question the government’s priorities when they are spending almost a million pounds redecorating a plane which in all likelihood has been grounded for months because of the coronavirus.

This is from the SNP MP Stewart McDonald.

It is beyond shameful that Boris Johnson vigorously fought calls to prevent children receiving free school meals – before eventually caving – he continues to resist calls to strengthen financial support for struggling families, households and workers during this crisis, and cuts international aid support – yet is intent on wasting nearly £1m of taxpayers’ money to repaint his private plane red, white and blue.

And this is from the Lib Dem leadership contender Layla Moran.

This is a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money. The same money could be spent providing an extra £15 school meals voucher to 60,000 children.

Boris Johnson has insulted our closest allies, scrapped the foreign aid department and is ploughing ahead with a self-destructive no deal Brexit. Repainting his plane won’t undo the damage he’s done to the UK’s reputation abroad.

The BBC has invited staff to apply for voluntary redundancy as it attempts to make £125m in savings this year amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The broadcaster has asked its public service staff – not those in its commercial subsidiaries – to make a voluntary redundancy expression of interest.

In an internal message to staff, the BBC director general, Lord Hall, said delaying means-testing of the free TV licence for over-75s would cost a “significant sum at a time when revenue from the licence fee is also down” because of the broadcaster’s ability to collect the fee during lockdown. He added that commercial operations had also been “severely affected”.

A BBC spokesman said:

The impact of the coronavirus pandemic means the BBC needs to make £125m of savings this financial year, in addition to the considerable efficiency savings the corporation had previously committed to and planned for.

The BBC’s challenge is to keep delivering programmes and services for the whole country while continuing to adapt and change.

The BBC is therefore inviting public service staff to express an interest in voluntary redundancy.

The BBC suspended plans to cut around 450 jobs in BBC News because of the demands of covering the pandemic but the cuts will still take place at a later date.

The £125m is in addition to the efficiency savings the broadcaster has committed to – £800m by 2021/22.

James Purnell, director of radio and education, recently told MPs that the corporation would have to air repeats and the pandemic’s effect on schedules would be starker next year.

Opinion polls suggest people are not enthusiastic about the lockdown being eased. In an article for Prospect, Peter Kellner, the former YouGov president, argues that No 10 should avoid drawing the wrong conclusions from these findings. Here’s an extract.

When the lockdown was imposed in March, Opinium found that 65 per cent approved of the government’s handling of the crisis, while 23 per cent disapproved—a net rating of plus 42. By last week, the figures were: approve 30 per cent, disapprove 48 per cent. A net rating of minus 18. The 60-point change in the net rating in less than three months is the biggest, fastest shift I can recall for any government on any issue. The only comparable shift I can recall is the public disillusionment with the Iraq war in 2003, and that took longer …

How does all that relate to views about relaxing the lockdown? Here is how. Trust in the government is low and falling. Voters are increasingly suspicious of ministers’ motives when they talk about rethinking the two-metre rule or schools and shops reopening. The underlying message is NOT “hold off; don’t take any risks”; it is “after the way you have screwed things up so far, we don’t trust you to get this right.” Put another way, suppose that Johnson’s government was as trusted as Angela Markel’s (Germans’ rating of their own government is plus 61, according to Kekst—a far cry from the minus 26 that we award ours). In those circumstances, going forwards we would be far more likely to credit ministers for getting the health/economy trade-off right, and less likely to blame them for relaxing the lockdown too fast.

Kellner argues that, on this issue, ministers should ignore the polls and press ahead with easing the lockdown. “The public verdict that will matter will be that, sometime next year, when it becomes clear that the government has or has not steered Britain towards a healthier, more prosperous future,” he says.

A few more pictures from the scene outside parliament after Boris Johnson’s car was involved in a collision:

NHS England has said a further 77 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 28,138. The full figures are here.

All but two of the 77 had underlying health conditions, NHS England said.

For comparison, here are the equivalent daily NHS England figures for hospital deaths for the last two weeks.

Wednesday 3 June – 179

Thursday 4 June – 115

Friday 5 June – 123

Saturday 6 June – 75

Sunday 7 June – 72

Monday 8 June – 59

Tuesday 9 June – 129

Wednesday 10 June – 88

Thursday 11 June – 83

Friday 12 June – 70

Saturday 13 June – 67

Sunday 14 June – 27

Monday 15 June – 28

Tuesday 16 June – 79

Boris Johnson’s convoy was targeted by a protester as the prime minister left the Palace of Westminster this afternoon.

The demonstrator, who had been protesting about Turkish action against Kurdish rebels, ran into the road outside the gates to parliament.

This forced the lead vehicles in the convoy – a police motorbike and the prime minister’s Jaguar – to stop, with a support vehicle running into the back of the luxury saloon carrying Johnson.

The vehicles drove off shortly afterwards in the direction of Downing Street, with a large dent visible on the rear of the Jaguar.

Downing Street said there were no reports of anyone being injured in the incident.
The protester was detained by police and taken into the Palace of Westminster by officers.

Here is footage of the incident, posted on Twitter by Steve Bray, aka ‘Mr Stop Brexit’.

Here are the main points from this afternoon’s Downing Street lobby briefing, as reported by PA Media.

The prime minister, according to Downing Street, was “fully aware of the issue” that sparked Marcus Rashford’s campaign to extend the children’s food voucher scheme into the summer holidays.

It came after Boris Johnson said at the daily press briefing on Tuesday he had heard of it “today”.

The PM’s official spokesman said:

I think he watched the BBC Breakfast interview with Marcus Rashford for the first time yesterday.

He spoke to Marcus Rashford on the telephone and said how he found it a powerful interview and he congratulated him on his campaign.

Asked whether he had read the initial open letter by Rashford on the issue, the spokesman added:

The PM was fully aware of the issue but he only saw the actually BBC Breakfast interview yesterday morning.

The spokesman confirmed the PM had seen repeats of the interview with the England footballer, which had first aired on Monday.

Downing Street said work to paint “national branding” on a military plane used by the prime minister will cost “around £900,000”.

The red, white and blue Union flag-style paint job will allow the RAF Voyager to continue to participate in military work, according to No 10.

The spokesman said:

The RAF Voyager used by the royal family and the prime minister is currently in Cambridgeshire for pre-planned repainting.

This will mean that the plane can better represent the UK around the world with national branding, similar to many other leaders’ planes, while also retaining its military air-to-air refuelling capability.

The spokesman defended the near £1m cost to taxpayers, telling reporters:

That incorporates the cost of creating a design that will promote the UK around the world without compromising the plane’s vital military role.

At every stage we have worked to ensure value for money for the UK taxpayer and all of the work has been undertaken in the UK, directly benefiting British suppliers.

In the 24 hours up to 9am on Tuesday, 113,107 tests for Covid-19 were provided, Downing Street confirmed. Of those, 28,186 were antibody tests. The latest available details of testing capacity in the UK was 241,540 on Monday.

Asked about the gap between actual tests carried out and capacity, the PM’s spokesman said:

We always said testing numbers will fluctuate daily.

We have publicly appealed for anyone who thinks they might have symptoms of coronavirus to come forward and to get a test.

It is important if anyone is concerned they might have coronavirus symptoms that they do contact us, they do get a test and if they are found to have coronavirus, that they share with us their contacts and we are able to advise people to self-isolate for the protection of the public.

No 10 said it had no data on how many people had been fined for breaking travel quarantine rules after arriving in the UK.

When asked about the numbers of quarantine fines handed out, the spokesman said:

No, we’re as we were on that in that the Home Office are looking at the information they publish. And again, I’m not aware of any fines being issued or anecdotally of anyone refusing to give details when asked.

Downing Street said it had nothing new to add on Johnson’s conversations with Spain and France about creating “travel corridors” to allow travel between the UK and the two European nations.

Downing Street has said there are no reports of any injuries after Boris Johnson’s car was involved in a collision outside the Palace of Westminster.

A protester was detained after running in front of the silver Jaguar as it left parliament. Video showed the car being hit by a Range Rover travelling behind.

The spokesman confirmed Johnson was travelling in the car at the time, adding:

I think the video speaks for itself as to what happened. No reports of anybody being injured.

Downing Street said there was “no update” on when the NHS Covid-19 contact-tracing app would be ready for roll-out.

Matt Hancock had initially said it would be ready last month. The spokesman, asked when the app would be made available to the public, said he did not have a date.

Asked to confirm what the problem was with the app, he said:

The latest test and trace numbers will be published tomorrow, tomorrow morning I believe. There may well be the opportunity for you to ask further questions about the app during the course of the day, but I’ve not got any update.

The UK government has ordered an urgent review of the potential ability of vitamin D to reduce the risk of Covid-19, our colleague Mattha Busby reports.

It comes amid growing concern over the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people, who make up 94% of all doctors killed by the virus.

A delayed Public Health England review into the reasons behind the disproportionate impact on people from BAME backgrounds which pointed to historical racism was said not to have yet reviewed the role of diet and vitamin D.

Here is the full story.

One further death with coronavirus has been has been recorded in Northern Ireland, bringing the total reported by the Department of Health to 543. There were eight new confirmed cases of Covid-19, bringing the total there to 4,862.