UK coronavirus live: Boris Johnson to face MPs’ questions on Cummings as Tory revolt continues
West Midlands police and crime commissioner David Jamieson said officers are reporting people breaking lockdown rules and using Dominic Cummings as an excuse, amid fears Boris Johnson’s key aide’s actions are undermining the government’s public health messaging.
Jamieson told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One programme that people are telling officers that “if it is okay for Cummings, it is okay for us” and “it looks like there is one rule for us and another rule for the people in No 10 Downing Street”.
He said:
Now you can’t… if the rules are flexible, and people seem to have interpreted them who are at the heart of government, then it is almost impossible then for police officers to be able to carry out their job effectively.
What the police are now saying to me is they are getting quite a push back, not just from some of the younger people who previously where saying why can’t I play football, why can’t I go out in the streets? They’re getting push backs from other generations of people as well.
Now that is a bad sign, showing that confidence in the rules, confidence in government and thereby the police’s ability to enforce it has been undermined very much in the last few days.
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has told reporters that the Cummings controversy has had a “real impact in our fight against this virus”, with a clear increase of people breaking lockdown rules on social distancing and gathering in groups.
Bev Hughes, the deputy mayor and lead on policing, told a virtual press conference that resulting confusion over what is and isn’t allowed has made it “almost impossible for police to deal with” infringements. She added:
It’s difficult to see a role for police in maintaining social distancing rules.
Hughes said there were clearly more group gatherings over the weekend but police issued just five fixed penalty fines, all to people who had driven to Greater Manchester from Birmingham.
Covid-19 remains a significant problem in the north-west. There were 349 new cases in Greater Manchester over the past week, said Burnham, representing a gradual slowing of the virus.
But he warned that 25 people were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 yesterday, up from 18 the previous Tuesday. Sixty-five people are currently in intensive care in Greater Manchester hospitals, down from 77 last week.
Burnham said he had “significant concerns” after hearing the health secretary, Matt Hancock, float the idea of local lockdowns to deal with flare-ups in particular communities. He said:
It would be a real challenge with regards to the enforceability of any lockdown and indeed the fairness.
If we rush into a local lockdown policy I think it’s a recipe for chaos.
He also complained that Greater Manchester had received “minimal” information from the government about how these local lockdowns would work, adding:
We are in the dark as to this policy even though it will have a major impact on us. I’m afraid it follows a pattern on PPE and testing and now this.
Hi everyone. I’m Lucy Campbell, back from lunch. Please do continue to get in touch throughout the day with news tips and stories we should be covering.
Mike Freer, Conservative Member of Parliament for Finchley and Golders Green and government whip, has said he would not have done what Dominic Cummings did. In a letter to his constituents who raised complaints, he said:
I certainly would not have taken the actions Mr Cummings did. There is an argument that can be made for Mr Cummings’ trip, and I know that many will understand his actions as a father. Of course, it is entirely reasonable for people to vehemently disagree with his view of events. I do not believe it is the conclusion many of my constituents, or myself, would have reached. Many would simply not have taken this course of action.
I completely understand the anger with which you write, especially as the British public have given up so much to help fight this virus. Please be assured that the full feeling of my constituents is always passed on to relevant ministers, including the Prime Minister.
As a Government minister, I am in the privileged position of being able to ensure your views, the strength of your views, alongside my own views, are conveyed directly to the Prime Minister. I take my role in representing the constituency very seriously and in my experience, firm but private representations are more effective than public denunciations.
The chief executive of NHS Providers has said healthcare professionals would like “dots to be joined up” with the government’s track and trace plan.
Chris Hopson told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One Programme:
I think what we’re saying here is we are about to enter a dangerous phase, but if we haven’t got the track, test and isolate infrastructure in place, and if we’ve got confidence and trust in the guidelines starting to reduce, that feels to us to be really quite a dangerous position.
So if I was one of those select committee chairman, I would be asking the question – prime minister, given we’re not going to have the world-class test and trace in by June 1, when will it be available?
How can you restore the trust and confidence in the social distancing guidelines that has been lost over the last four days, given that we are entering this dangerous phase?”
Asked why the government’s system would not be world class, Hopson said “we need to build local test and trace capacity and that is simply not going to be in place”.
A retired doctor who set up the UK’s first Covid-19 contact-tracing scheme has warned the government faces major challenges after they struggled to persuade health and care workers to self-isolate.
Dr Bing Jones told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One programme that only a third of people involved in their testing scheme agreed to self-isolate.
He said: “The other two-thirds were mostly co-operative but we didn’t complete the follow-up. One of the reasons was that three-quarters of these people who we were unable to follow, so that is around 30 people, were employed in the health service or care homes or home care.
“They generally said ‘we’d like to help but I discussed it with my manager and my manager says no’.”
He added that “this is a major challenge for the government”.
Greg Fell, a director of Public Health in Sheffield, added: “I hope the app will do what it was built to do but certainly I’m not building my hopes and aspirations about the app being there to save us. I’m building my hopes and aspirations about having skilled humans.”
Hello everyone. I am covering the blog for an hour while Lucy Campbell takes a well-earned lunch break. Please do get in touch to share any news tips or information with me.
The schools minister, Nick Gibb, has told MPs it is “difficult to say” whether the government’s ambition for primary schools to reopen to all pupils this summer term will be met.
He told the education select committee that the final decision on the wider reopening of primary schools before September will depend on whether transmission rates continue to decline.
We don’t know [this will happen] until we see more evidence of the R factor continuing to reduce over the next few weeks.
The R number refers to the average number of people that will contract coronavirus from an infected person.
What does the ‘R’ number of coronavirus mean? – video explainer
Gibb confirmed that a decision on reception, year 1 and year 6 pupils will be taken on Thursday after the government has reviewed the latest scientific evidence.
He added that rotas could be introduced if primary schools also reopened to other years to ensure physical distancing takes place.
The more we all adhere to the rules, the more that we’ll be able to make further progress in reopening schools.
Meanwhile, the NEU teaching union has written to the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, criticising the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies’ advice on reopening schools.
Among the concerns raised in the letter is the issue of regional variations in the R number, which was also raised in the select committee hearing. The Labour MP for Gateshead, Ian Mearns, pointed out it was five times higher in his constituency than in Cornwall.
Here are some of the main points from this afternoon’s lobby briefing.
Downing Street defended not carrying out a review into fines issued to families who travelled to get childcare during lockdown.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said:
We’re confident that the police will use their common sense and discretion, they have been very clear throughout that they will explain, encourage and finally enforce fines are always used by police as a last resort.
Boris Johnson maintains his position that Dominic Cummings acted legally and with integrity despite a Tory backlash and opinion polls suggesting the public disagree.
The spokesman said:
The PM set out on Monday night when he was asked about this that people would have to make up their own minds.
He said his own conclusion was Dominic Cummings acted reasonably, legally and with integrity and care for his family and for others.
He noted that the PM said reasonable people may disagree with some of the decisions but not his aide’s motivation, adding:
From the prime minister’s view, he concluded that Dominic Cummings acted reasonably and legally.
Downing Street said the Treasury’s schemes will help the economy bounce back after the latest figures showing their cost were published.
The spokesman told the briefing:
The Bank of England and the OBR have both said that without these schemes the impact on our economy would’ve been much worse.
The schemes put us and businesses across the UK in a strong position to bounce back in the future and carry on delivering the agenda set out earlier this year at the budget.
Downing Street said it is “hopeful” that schools could begin reopening on 1 June ahead of the official legal review into the lockdown on Thursday.
The spokesman said:
The PM said on Sunday night the final decision will be taken as part of the formal review into lockdown measures, which the law requires us to undertake by Thursday.
That formal review will happen tomorrow and we are hopeful, without prejudging it, that we will be able to proceed with the reopening schools on June 1.
Downing Street denied that the PM outlined plans to reopen schools to distract from the Dominic Cummings furore.
The PM’s spokesman said:
No, absolutely not. I’ve been asked here day after day when we were going to say to schools what our position was because they needed a significant period of notice to start planning for the reopening, so the PM’s timing reflects that and nothing else.
Downing Street said the lockdown review should be announced at the daily press conference on Thursday after ministers consider Sage advice.
The spokesman added:
Cabinet has discussed the road map and the decision which the government would like to implement on the proviso that it’s in line with the five tests and any package we bring forward wouldn’t risk a second spike in the virus that would overwhelm the NHS.
A further cabinet meeting was not expected on Thursday, he added.
Downing Street remains confident of hitting the 200,000 target for testing capacity by Monday, with that ability standing at 154,120 in the 24 hours up to 9am on Tuesday.
Asked if the target will be met, the PM’s official spokesman said:
Yes, that’s right. It’s in tandem with the commitment we have to have the tracing and testing scheme in place on Monday.
The prime minister missed vital meetings on coronavirus and had barely been seen for weeks, but for Dominic Cummings he’s fought tooth-and-nail, writes Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty.
An extract from this week’s column reads:
Soon will come a point when the memes peter out and the media scrum disperses. What will be left is a historic economic depression and a public realisation that far more people have died in this pandemic than in the Blitz, thanks to an administration that could barely bring itself to care for anyone beyond its own senior members.
