Boris Johnson has been accused of tastelessly exploiting the coronavirus crisis to boost support for the union on his first visit to Scotland since the general election. At a news conference Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said: “I don’t think any of us should be championing or celebrating a pandemic that has taken thousands of lives as some example of the pre-existing political case we want to make.” (See 2.19pm.) She was responding to Johnson’s claim that an independent Scotland would not have had the financial muscle to stop coronavirus causing an economic “disaster”. (See 10.40am.) Sturgeon said the UK government was only able to help in the way that it did because it could borrow billions and that, under independence, Scotland would also have borrowing powers. Johnson’s visit coincides with opinion polls in Scotland showing support for independence consistently ahead of opposition to it for the first time since devolution. (See 11.28am.) But Johnson said, even if the SNP secured a majority in next year’s Scottish parliamentary elections, that would not justify a second referendum. (See 12.02pm.)
Swimming pools, spas and community centres to open in Northern Ireland from tomorrow
Henry McDonald
Swimming pools, spas and community centres are to be reopened from tomorrow in Northern Ireland, Stormont’s ministers announced this evening.
In the latest moves to ease lockdown in the region, fans will also be allowed to attend sports venues so long as those running contests “can control access and ensure adherence to social distancing”.
One such event could be the Irish Cup final next Friday, when it is understood the football authorities will allow up to 2,000 fans into Windsor Park, which has a capacity to hold up 18,000 spectators.
The supporters allowed into the international stadium will be subject to strict social distancing at the final.
The Northern Ireland executive has also ruled that the number of people allowed to gather in a private house can rise to 10.
Saunas and steam rooms are also permitted to open, while funfairs can also resume operating from tomorrow.
Ian Jones from the Press Association has more on the government’s failure to reach Boris Johnson’s 24-hour target for test results. (See 4.58pm.)
Boris Johnson told the Commons last month that the results of all in-person Covid-19 tests would be "turned around within 24 hours by the end of June".
Liz Truss has ruled out signposting when she expects the UK government to secure a trade deal with the US, fuelling fears that hopes of reaching an agreement ahead of the presidential election in November have been abandoned.
Appearing before a Lords committee this afternoon, Truss said:
We are commencing round three of the talks next week and we are making good progress. But we are very clear that we are not going to sacrifice a good deal for speed. We have expert negotiators who are tabling UK-specific texts across the whole agreement to ensure that it reflects our interests.
We are not just going to accept photocopies of the US-Mexico-Canada agreement. We are also not going to budge on our red lines: the NHS remains off the table, our food standards must not be undermined and British farming must benefit from a deal.
Wearing face masks in shops to be made compulsory in Northern Ireland from 20 August
Stormont executive ministers have provisionally agreed to make the wearing of face masks in shops in Northern Ireland mandatory from 20 August, PA Media reports. They will initiate a public awareness campaign in the intervening weeks in the hope of securing voluntary compliance.
Boris Johnson has has arrived at an RAF base in Moray after spending time in Orkney on his one-day visit to Scotland. As PA Media reports, his visit to RAF Lossiemouth coincides with a £100m home for submarine hunter planes at the base being handed over from Boeing to the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The hangar bay can hold up to three of the nine submarine-hunting Poseidon Maritime Patrol aircraft the air force will have in its fleet. The facility, jointly funded by Boeing and the MoD, also provides accommodation for two squadrons, as well as training and mission support facilities.
Boris Johnson walking down steps while talking to Group Captain Chris Layden after he viewed a Typhoon fighter jet at RAF Lossiemouth, Moray. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA
Boris Johnson's 24-hour test result target still being missed, DHSC figures show
As my colleague Sarah Boseley reported earlier (see 3.41pm), the government’s test-and-trace system is still failing to meet the target of reaching 80% of the people testing positive for coronavirus to ensure that their contacts can be told to self-isolate. It is very, very close (79.7%). But when it comes to identifying the people who have been in contact with those people testing positive, the success rate is only 61.5% if you exclude so-called “complex cases” – outbreaks in hospitals or care homes etc, where it is easier to identify all relevant contacts.
But today’s figures (pdf) also show the government is failing to meet another target. At the start of June Boris Johnson told MPs at PMQs that he wanted to get “all tests turned around in 24 hours by the end of June, except for difficulties with postal tests or insuperable problems like that”. But today’s figures show that only 87.4% of tests being conducted under pillar 1 (in NHS and PHE laboratories) are being completed within 24 hours, and only 46.8% of tests being conducted under pillar 2 (at drive-through centres and mobile centres, and with home testing kits) are hitting that target. Excluding home testing kits (where the post affects the timing), the pillar 2 figure is 57.5%.
Justin Madders, the shadow health minister, said these figures were getting worse. He said:
The prime minister promised we would have a 24-hour turnaround for test results by the end of last month but we are a long way off, with the numbers heading in the wrong direction again this week. How can ministers think it’s acceptable that testing is getting slower rather than faster as promised?
Two protesters waiting for Boris Johnson during his visit to Stromness, Orkney. Photograph: Robert Perry/Getty Images
Here are two of the people protesting about Boris Johnson’s visit to Orkney. If you are wondering why one of them is holding up a mug, it’s because he thinks the name of a small Orkney village is appropriate. A reader has been in touch to say that the line “we’ve already got a Twatt in Orkney” is going down well with some locals.
A protester holds up a mug with ‘Twatt’ written on it (the name of a small town in Orkney), marking Boris Johnson’s visit. Photograph: Robert Perry/Getty Images
This is from Ian Murray, the shadow Scottish secretary, on Boris Johnson’s visit to Scotland.
Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon are bickering about the constitution in the middle of the worst health and economic crisis of our lifetimes.
The prime minister should be using his visit to announce a sectorial extension to the furlough scheme to protect jobs in hard hit industries like tourism.
What Scotland needs is two governments working together, with the autonomy of devolution and security of the United Kingdom.
The Department for Business has announced a £100m investment in vaccine production, that involves upgrading a plant in Essex to turn it into a fully licensed vaccine factory. The details are in a news release here. And here is an excerpt.
The investment will fund a state-of-the-art cell and gene therapy catapult manufacturing innovation centre to accelerate the mass production of a successful Covid-19 vaccine in the UK. Due to open in December 2021, the centre will have the capacity to produce millions of doses each month, ensuring the UK has the capabilities to manufacture vaccines and advanced medicines, including for emerging diseases, far into the future.
Located in Braintree, Essex, the government initiative will upgrade an existing facility to create a fully licensed manufacturing centre.
Test-and-trace system still not meeting 80% target, figures show
Sarah Boseley
The numbers of people testing positive for coronavirus reached by contact tracers and asked for details of those they have recently met are edging upwards, but are still short of the 80% the scientists recommend to keep the epidemic in England under control.
The NHS Confederation said it was concerned that the target was not being hit, risking a second wave in the winter as more virus circulates indoors. Dr Layla McCay, a director at the confederation, said:
I’m glad to see improvements in the proportion of people with coronavirus whose close contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate, but we cannot ignore the fact that the benchmark for effectiveness, as recommended by the government’s independent scientific advisers, is still not being met.
The Guardian on Wednesday revealed that the numbers reached in more socio-economically deprived communities were lagging a long way below the national figure. In partially locked-down Leicester, 65% of people testing positive were reached and asked to provide their contacts. In Luton, with the sixth highest infection rate in England, the rate was only 47%.
“We are hearing that people in the hardest hit areas are not being reached,” said McCay.
This is too important not to get right. Without a test and trace system that is consistently robust across the whole country and effective at reaching people where the disease is particularly prevalent in a timely manner, we risk a second peak that could seriously endanger public health and put the NHS in the path of a wave of infections that could overwhelm it.
The latest statistics out today (pdf), for the week from 9 to 15 July, show that 79.7% of people testing positive were reached by the contact tracers, slightly up on the previous week. The numbers of the close contacts of “non-complex cases”, which means individuals not in outbreak settings, hospitals or care homes, who were reached were lower, however, at just over 60%. In complex cases, the tracing teams do much better – 98.5%.
And these are from Yes Orkney, an Orkney-based Scottish independence campaign, showing pictures of some of the protests that greeted Boris Johnson on when he visited the islands this morning.
Here is the full text of Michel Barnier’s opening statement when he gave his press briefing earlier after the end of the latest round of UK-EU trade talks.
The global poultry production giant Moy Park has confirmed that a “very small number of employees” have tested positive for coronavirus at a plant in Northern Ireland.
The company said the workers at its Ballymena factory were self-isolating on full pay.
Moy Park’s operation in the Country Antrim town employs 1,400 workers including agency staff. Northern Ireland’s health minister, Robin Swann, said that the region’s Public Health Agency was cooperating with Moy Park over the outbreak.
Swann stressed that an outbreak of Covid-19 was defined as two or more people being infected.
“We have always said we will expect outbreaks and clusters as we start to ease restrictions, but what we really need is for people to interact with test, track and tracing so we can manage them,” Swann added.
Face coverings will be compulsory in takeaways, banks and post offices as well as shops, supermarkets and stations in England from tomorrow, new government guidelines have confirmed. My colleague Sarah Butler has the details.
Secondary school children from the most advantaged families will take six months to catch up following the Covid-19 closure of schools while those from disadvantaged backgrounds could take up to a year, according to a study. As PA Media reports, researchers from the University of Southampton also found that primary age children from advantaged families would be approximately a year behind while those from disadvantaged backgrounds would be even further behind.
Dr Nic Pensiero, who led the study, said:
Parents who work in professional and management occupations, which are suitable for home working, are better able to assist their children’s home learning.
When you also consider that such parents are better able to provide children with their own computers and other learning resources as well as a suitable learning space, this puts their children in a significantly better situation than those from non-professional, non-managerial families.
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