Kate Green (Lab Shadow Education Sec) notes that Gavin Williamson hasn’t come to the House to answer the Urgent Question on schools reopening and that Nick Gibb is answering instead: "I am more used to seeing him [Gibb] than the Secretary of State.”
Gibb being repeatedly asked what the plan/criteria for school reopening is. Gibb replying that they’re “consulting with stakeholders” and awaiting scientific advice. Pressed on what the levels of hospitalisation etc has to be, Gibb says they’re relying on scientific advice.
Lot of pressure from the Tory benches for government to explain what the exact threshold is.
.@SteveBakerHW: “Will my rt. hon friend please either open the schools or justify the decision to keep them closed by quantifying the harms and the benefits of his policy?”
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Spent a bit of time today with the manager of the very first home I went to in the crisis, in Hove on the south coast, back at the very start of April
The picture she and her colleagues paint isn't a good one.
For a start, as I reported yesterday, deaths really are on the up.
They were catastrophically high in the spring. But lockdown did cause them to fall quite sharply. Guidance actually received by homes (in many cases a long time coming) helped too
Having been in abeyance until late on- late December, they have started to rise again quite sharply. At 1705 last week. That's up by 32% on the week before and 157% on a month ago.
PM confirms that when Parliament returns from recess in the week commencing 22nd February government will publish its plan "for taking the country out of lockdown."
"Our aim will be to set out a gradual phased approach to removing the restrictions in a sustainable way guided by the principles we've observed throughout the pandemic."
NEW: Boris Johnson confirms that schools in England will not be reopening for all pupils immediately after February half term.
Keir Starmer on passing the 100,000 Covid death threshold: “The question on everyone’s lips is why. The Prime Minister must have thought about that a lot. Could he tell us why he thinks the United Kingdom has ended up with a death toll of 100,000- the highest number in Europe?”
Starmer might have added that it’s also the worst death rate in the world as of yesterday.
PM: “We mourn every death in this pandemic and we share the grief of all those who have been bereaved. Let the House be in no doubt that I and the government take full responsibility for all the actions we’ve taken.”
NEW: It's official. More than 100,000 people in the UK have now died from Covid-19, according to govt figures.
100,162 died within 28 days of a positive test.
103,602 deaths with Covid on the death certificate.
Over 5x what Patrick Vallance said would be a "good" outcome.
Remember, this is likely a conservative estimate.
If we look at excess deaths (more reliable measure) in England alone, if we look at 2020 and the first two weeks of 2021, total deaths are up 15% on the average, or by 80,704.
With these new figures UK is currently the worst performing country in the world in terms of deaths per million. Should be treated with a bit of caution as a result of varying reporting methods/UK having new variant but no doubt the UK is among the very worst performing nations.
Chair of Health Sel Committee @Jeremy_Hunt calls for more financial support to help people self isolate, telling @soniasodha: “We should say that we will simply make up any loss in salary if you’re asked to self isolate. People need to know they’re not going to be out of pocket.”
Have reported since the start of the crisis about the disincentive paltry levels of statutory sick pay has played in self isolating (eg in care)- given how much money we’ve spent on furlough, the cost of stepping in to guarantee lost income for a fortnight would be nugatory.
My colleagues @katierazz and @sallyches have been leading the way in showing how the assistance which does exist to support self isolation is patchy, at best