UK Covid: record 1,564 deaths reported to take toll past 100,000; PM 'concerned' about Brazilian variant – as it happened

A total of 3,894 hospital admissions of people with Covid-19 in England were reported for 11 January, NHS England figures also showed. As PA Media reports, this is slightly below the record number of 3,967 admissions reported for 6 January , but up 9% on the equivalent figure a week ago on 4 January. During the first wave of the virus, admissions peaked at 3,099 on 1 April 2020.

The Liberal Democrats say Boris Johnson was wrong in what he said about the no recourse to public funds rule at the liaison committee earlier. (See 4.24pm.) Alistair Carmichael, the party’s home affairs spokesman, said:

It is outrageous and wrong for the prime minister to suggest that the ‘no recourse to public funds’ rule is aimed at people who are in the UK unlawfully.

He should know that it’s a standard condition imposed on most people who come to live and work here on a visa.

The ‘no recourse to public funds’ rule is particularly damaging during the Covid crisis, preventing many families who have lost their livelihoods overnight from accessing the universal credit safety net.

Manchester city council has unveiled plans to help with workplace safety during the pandemic.

According to data collected by the council, 55% of those surveyed feel safe at work. 32% feel they are safe ‘to an extent’ at work, while 8% report not feeling safe at all.

A single email address has been created for people to complain about potential breaches of coronavirus legislation or to raise concerns about their working environment.

It comes as Greater Manchester police received 175 complaints about businesses potentially breaking coronavirus restrictions. This is separate to the reported number of 1,131 coronavirus-related breaches across Greater Manchester.

Manchester, like most regions above the M25, has recorded yet another significant increase in positive coronavirus cases.

Since 8 January, the seven-day rate for positive coronavirus cases in Greater Manchester has increased to 449.1 per 100,000, from 321.8 recorded on New Year’s Day.

In Trafford, it has increased from 366.1 to 492.2 per 100,000 people. In Wigan, it has increased from 356.3 to 490.2 per 100,000.

At a news conference Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester city council, said:

I think the view is that the number is still increasing, although the rate of increase may have slowed down. I suppose the only bit of good news within this is the England average is 630 per 100,000, so it’s still a way behind that, but this is not clearly good.

Over the last two weeks, there has been a significant rise in the change of infection in Greater Manchester, up 40%, compared with England overall at 11%.

138 people occupy ITU beds as of 12 January, an increase of 19 from the 5 January, at 119.

The total number of vaccines administered is approximately 87,697.

A Scottish seafood fisherman has warned Boris Johnson he and other fishers will dump tonnes of rotten langoustines and other seafood outside the House of Parliament unless the UK government solves the industry’s Brexit exports crisis.

Jamie McMillan, the co-owner of Loch Fyne Langoustines, a fishing business based in Tarbert, Argyll, tweeted that he and other fishers were on the brink of bankruptcy - a warning echoed by a major seafood exporter and haulier based in Eyemouth north of Berwick, DR Collin.

The industry has blamed expensive extra bureaucracy exporting to Europe, long delays in getting their consignments inspected by vets in Scotland, and clients in the EU cancelling contracts.

“It’s unbelievable the situation we’re in here,” McMillan said in a short film on Twitter. “The fishing industry has been made a fool of by the Westminster government. I’m dismayed, I’m angry. My blood is boiling.”

McMillan accused the prime minister of brushing off appeals from Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader, to act during prime minister’s questions on Wednesday. Blackford said one of his constituents, another shellfish exporter, had lost £40,000 with one consignment. McMillan said:

Prime minister and Michael Gove, I can assure you if Scottish exporters can’t get their product to market next week, we will be at the gates of Westminster and we will be dumping our shellfish on your doorstep, rotten. The same way the UK Westminster government is rotten to the core.... Get it sorted, and get it sorted now.

And that’s it. The liaison committee has just wound up.

Sir Bernard Jenkin ends with some quick questions.

Q: The trade committee want a minister to give evidence on free ports, but business and the Treasury both say the other should provide a minster. Who should it be?

Johnson says he will sort this out.

Q: Will the integrated defence and security review appear in February?

Johnson says he cannot commit to that.

From the Daily Mirror’s Pippa Crerar

Darren Jones (Lab), chair of the business committee, asks if Johnson is personally interested in Cop26. And what does he want to achieve?

Johnson says he is becoming obsessed with it. He says it will have real impact. This is a charter for jobs, he says. This agenda provides the opportunity to turbocharge the economy.

And there is another aspect, biodiversity. He says it is a tragedy that so many species and so much habitat is being destroyed. We won’t address climate change unless we address our relationship with the natural world.

He says a lot of countries are coming forward and committing to getting emissions down to net zero by 2050.

Q: But Cop26 is not focused on biodiversity?

Johnson says he wants to use it to focus on biodiversity too, and he implies there is a follow-up initiative.

Philip Dunne (Con), chair of the environmental audit committee, asks if Alok Sharma, the new president of Cop26, will take questions in the Commons now that he has given up his business secretary role and is just focusing on the Cop26 presidency.

Yes, says Johnson.

Q: Huawei employees in Europe have to leave the company or go back to China if they marry a European. Isn’t that what you would expect from a government or an intelligence agency?

Johnson says the government has had to take some tough, and expensive, decisions relating to Huawei.

Johnson says he will be studing the EU-China deal. He wants a good relationship with China, but one where the UK speaks to them frankly. That should not stop them having a productive relationship where that is possible.

Q: Will you put privacy on the agenda for the G7?

Yes, says Johnson. He says we should be vigilant about China. He says Dominic Raab’s speech about the Uighurs yesterday was “terrific”. But he does not want the government to lurch into Sinophobia.

Q: What about a general agreement on data?

Johnson says he is looking at that kind of thing. He says he will explore that with the G7, and South Korea, Australia and India too.

Q: Are you happy an American company controls your communications with voters?

Johnson says there is a real debate to be had about this now that these companies are acting like publishers.

Tom Tugendhat (Con), chair of the foreign affairs committee, asks what Johnson’s priorities are for the G7 this year he is hosting.

“Building back better,” says Johnson. He says there was no international consensus about how to handle the pandemic. The global system failed, he says. There was a “sauve qui peut” environment. He would like a focus on jobs and trade.

When Johnson finally gets his chance to reply, he says the government is addressing left-over problems from Brexit, like rules relating to the sale of second-hand cars in Northern Ireland, and the export of seed potatoes.

If there are problems left over with Northern Ireland, article 16 is available, he says.

Sir Bill Cash (Con), the chair of the European scrutiny committee, is asking the next question. It is going on a bit ...

Simon Hoare (Con), chair of the Northern Ireland affairs committee, is asking the questions now.

Q: What is happening to the Willam Shawcross report about possible Libyan compensation for the victims of IRA bombs supplied by Libya?

Johnson says he is grateful to Shawcross for the work he’s done.

He says this is a difficult issues. Libya is a divided state. Until there is a proper government in place, it is hard to make progress on compensation, he says.

The Shawcross work is important but we are “some way off” getting a solution to this.

Pete Wishart (SNP), chair of the Scottish affairs committee, says it is clear there will be a second independence referendum. Why won’t Johnson acknowledge that?

Johnson says Scotland had a referendum that was meant to last a generation.

Calling the SNP the Scottish nationalist party (they are the Scottish national party), he challenges Wishart to talk about the Oxford vaccine - claiming the SNP do not use the term.

Wishart says it is silly for Oxford to keep talking about the Oxford vaccine.

Q: Why can’t we just have a referendum?

Johnson says the SNP have to say what they mean by that.

In response to questions from Hilary Benn (Lab), chair of the Brexit committee, Johnson refuses to guarantee that the three-month grace period for export health certificates for trade going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will be extended.

If there are food supply problems in April, he will invoke article 16, he says.

Q: We have known about the Brazilian variant for three days. But you have not done anything?

Johnson says the government is taking steps “and indeed stopping people coming from Brazil”.

Q: But you told Jeremy Hunt earlier you were not imposing a travel ban.

Johnson says the government is taking steps to stop the import of the variant coming from Brazil.

Cooper tries to clarify what Johnson means. She asks if there will be an actual travel ban. But Johnson says the government is “taking steps to stop the Brazil variant being imported into this country, as we’ve taken steps to stop the South African variant being imported into this country”.

At the end of the exchange it is still not clear what Johnson means, and whether he is just talking about the rules that will apply to all arrivals from Friday (pre-flight Covid checks) or a specific ban (as applies on arrivals from South Africa).

Yvette Cooper (Lab), chair of the home affairs committee, says that four weeks after the South African variant was identified, someone could still travel to the UK from South Africa via a third country.

Johnson says passengers are going to have to produce a negative test result before they are allowed in. He will look at the point Cooper raises.

Q: Other countries brought pre-flight tests in months ago. We are only bringing them in on Friday. Why did you not act earlier?

Johnson says measures at the border have been in place since the summer.

Q: In November you said you wanted more women in parliament. Does that include the Lords? And why have you not appointed more women peers?

Johnson says there are now more female PPS (parliamentary private secretaries) than men.

He says there has been “spectacular female leadership” in Covid from people like Dido Harding and Kate Bingham.

Q: But what about the Lords?

Johnson says he will address this. He claims this has not been drawn to his attention.

Caroline Nokes (Con), chair of the women and equalities committee, says it is “shameful” that No 10 has not done better at getting a sign language interpreter for its press conferences.

Q: Should no recourse to public funds (NRPF) be suspended during the pandemic?

Johnson says these are longstanding conditions. He says they apply to those like people in the UK illegally. He says he does not think it would be right to lift those conditions now. But other forms of support are available, he says.

(In an earlier hearing with the liaison committee, when asked about NRPF, Johnson did not know what it was. He is better briefed today.)

Q: Will legacy benefits be addressed in the budget? [Many people are still on pre-universal credit benefits that have not been increased as universal credit has.]

Johnson says the government is committed to addressing the needs of those on welfare.

Stephen Timms (Lab), chair of the work and pensions committee, asks Johnson if he agrees that it is unfair to keep universal credit claimants waiting until March to find out if they will keep the £20 uplift beyond April.

Johnson starts by saying that he will work with Jones on child poverty. He will look at Jones’s ideas, he says. (See 4.17pm.) He says he does not want to sound dismissive.

On universal credit, he says this is being kept under review. But he says he thinks work is a better way of helping people than welfare.

He says Labour wants to abolish universal credit. That is not the right way forward, he says.

Jones says he wrote to the PM asking him to set up a cross-party initiative to eliminate child poverty. Will he cooperate?

Johnson says the government is working to reduce child poverty.

Q: Last year you said there would be no extra paperwork at the Northern Ireland border post-Brexit. Why did you say that?

Johnson says things are flowing smoothly at the border, and they are flowing so smoothly that many hauliers are using that route rather than the Holyhead-Dublin route.

Darren Jones (Lab), chair of the business committee, goes next.

Q: Why have you not announced a national jobs and skills programme?

Johnson says the government has done a lot on skills and jobs. “Jobs, jobs, jobs are obviously our focus,” he says. But the solution to this is “jabs, jabs, jabs”.

Johnson says it is clear some of the food parcels have been “totally, woefully inadequate”.

It is schools that decide whether to offer vouchers or lunch packs. Some use lunch packs so they can use school caterers, he says.

McKinnell says there is a food poverty problem in this country, and she says the government should publish a strategy to address this.

Q: Can we have a dedicated minister for the hospitality sector?

Johnson says the government has already done a lot to help this sector. But the best thing for it is to defeat the virus, he says.

Catherine McKinnell (Lab), chair of the petitions committee, goes next.

Q: Do you regret saying Donald Trump was worthy of the Nobel peace prize?

Johnson says he is in favour of the UK prime minister having the best possible relationship with the US president.

Q: What is the impact of school closures on children’s mental health? And will schools reopen after half term?

Johnson says he wants schools open as soon as possible. But whether they can begin to do that from the middle of February depends on what happens with vaccination and the lockdown measures, he says.

Robert Halfon (Con), chair of the education committee, asks if the taxpayer will get a refund from the companies providing inadequate food boxes for children.

Johnson says the firms have been “hauled over the coals” and ordered to reimburse schools.

But he says the images on Twitter have not given a true picture. The actual amount of food that should be in the boxes, according to government guidelines, is double that, he says.

Sir Bernard Jenkin, the committee chair, says for the vaccine programme to work, there has to be a 75% take-up.

Johnson says he is right.

Q: Will councils be involved in planning the vaccine rollout?

Johnson says he wants to see that. He says he has been given examples of councils “pulling out all the stops” to help, for example by identifying sites for vaccination centres.

Johnson says by the end of this week he wants public health officers in local authorities to know who has been vaccinated in their area.

Labour’s Clive Betts, chair of the communities committee, goes next.

Q: Has there been a review of the operation of test and trace? Wouldn’t it make sense to give councils more of a role?

Johnson says they have been involved from the start. He says 56m tests have been conducted. He says he thinks that is the highest number in Europe.

Although test and trace alone can’t control the disease, it has played an important part, he says.

Q: Why are NHS England officials being told not to share information with local authority partners about vaccine location?

Johnson says he wants to see the NHS and local authorities collaborating. It is vital they work together, he says. He says there are hard-to-reach groups, for example from the black and minority ethnic community. They must be encouraged to take it.

Q: Should AstraZeneca workers be vaccinated so that they can continue to produce the vaccine?

Johnson says the government is in general leaving decisions about the priority list to the JCVI.

But he says there is a critical role to be played by people making the vaccine.

• Johnson suggests AstraZeneca employees could get vaccine early so they can continue manufacturing it.

Johnson praises community pharmacists, but he says if they were being used for the vaccination programme, they would not be able to use up all the supplies on any given day, and some vaccine might be wasted.

But he indicates that, going ahead, when the programme is at a different phase, community pharmacists will be used.

Johnson says later this week the government will start publishing regional figures for vaccinations.

The figures are very interesting. He says in the north-east and Yorkshire more than 50% of over-80s have been vaccinated. In other areas fewer people have been vaccinated.

Q: Are you still committed to fixing social care?

Yes, says Johnson. He says the sector needs reform and improvement. He says he wants to address the problem of people needing to sell their homes to pay for care.

There should be a long-term plan for the sector, he says.

The government is planning to push ahead with local elections despite concerns that it would be too dangerous to proceed during the coronavirus pandemic.

Chloe Smith, the Cabinet Office minister with responsibility for elections, said a “high bar” would need to be crossed to delay elections due to be held in May but said the position was being kept “under review”.

The elections, which include those postponed last year, will represent the first major electoral test of the country’s political leaders since the start of the pandemic.

Reports claimed that the government was planning to suspend the elections for at least a month.

Smith told the Commons the government was looking to introduce new measures to extend proxy voting before the elections.

Voters have a choice as to how they participate in elections. At the polling station, by proxy or by post. We want to maintain that choice but we recognise that the pandemic may change people’s needs and preferences ...

We will be bringing forward additional measures to support absent voting including extending the ability to appoint a proxy so that anybody who might be affected by Covid-19 in the days before the poll is still able to make their voice heard.

Smith, in her first appearance at the dispatch box since disclosing in December that she was being treated for breast cancer, said the government was minded not to work towards all-postal ballots. “I would rather give people a choice about how to vote,” she said.

Disabled people are being unlawfully targeted by police demanding they prove they are exempt from face mask requirements, disability charities have warned.

Charities including Mencap, Disability Rights UK and the Royal National Institute for the Deaf have written to the National Police Chiefs’ Council calling on it to make clear to rank-and-file officers that they do not have the power to demand that individuals show proof they do not have to wear a mask.

“This has no basis in law and risks discriminating against those with disabilities,” the charities told Martin Hewitt, the NPCC’s chair, in a letter sent today.

The letter comes after several high-profile incidents in which police have been forced to apologise or rescind fixed-penalty notices after targeting disabled people for not wearing masks. However, the letter says: “More recently, police have not apologised for their misunderstandings on this issue.”

Last week, Ken Marsh, chief of the Metropolitan Police Federation, told LBC radio that police should “carry on the enforcement” in cases where people claimed an exemption. In comments to the Daily Mail he said that those with a valid medical reason for not wearing a mask “have to print off a clarification that proves you have an exemption”.

Among those potentially exempt are survivors of rape and sexual assault. Kate Hardy, a spokesperson for the Survivors Trust, another signatory to the letter, said: “For these individuals, being pressured to disclose their trauma to prove exemption could cause severe distress. An unjust, and overzealous enforcement of regulations may exacerbate anxiety and isolation for survivors.”

Madeleine Stone, legal and policy officer at Big Brother Watch, which also signed, said:

Police requiring people to ‘show their papers’ to prove their disability is discriminatory, wrong and has no basis in law. Likewise, when police challenge people who have survived trauma to disclose the details of their exemption in public, it can be an intrusive and terrifying ordeal.

It must be the highest priority of officers to ensure that restrictions are enforced lawfully and fairly, without perpetuating discrimination.

Scottish councils are getting an extra £45m to spend on hiring teachers, computer tablets and family support staff after ministers responded to intense pressure to alleviate the impacts of school closures.

The money was unveiled by John Swinney, the Scottish education secretary, after opposition parties had pressed the devolved government to hire staff, improve teaching support and also ensure remote learning was effective.

Swinney said alongside the funding, which would be enough to hire up to 2,000 extra teachers, Scotland’s schools inspectorate would investigate whether remote learning policies and systems across the country were good enough.

Private and third sector childcare operators would get an extra £4m in emergency support. Swinney said Scottish ministers, who have had around £9bn in extra financing from the Treasury, had already funded the recruitment of 1,400 extra teachers and 200 support staff.

Critical care in Wales is currently operating at 152% of normal capacity, the chief executive of NHS Wales has said. Dr Andrew Goodall told a press conference in Cardiff:

My greatest concern at the moment is the impact on critical care.

Units are under enormous pressure as we continue to see people who are very sick with coronavirus admitted to critical care across Wales.

There are now 150 people in critical care units with coronavirus. This is the highest level that we have seen during the second wave. This is almost our entire non-pandemic critical care capacity in use.

The average age in critical care in Wales is 59, with almost twice as many men admitted as women.

The latest edition of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast is out. Jessica Elgot is joined by Rafael Behr to talk about a week of confusion over lockdown rules and free school meals. Lisa O’Carroll updates us on how Brexit has affected UK trade with the EU so far. Plus, Stephen Bush and Rachel Shabi discuss the potential for 2021 to be “the year of Keir”.

Marcus Rashford says there should now be a full, major review of the free school meal system. He has just posted these on Twitter.

Chartwells has issued this statement apologising for any failings with its food parcels.

Labour has sent out details of the official guidance on what should be in food parcels quoted by Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs. (See 12.20pm.) Here is the government guidance. And here is a document from LACA, which represents school caterers, saying what should be in food parcels. This has been endorsed by the government.

The LACA document gives this as an example of what should be in a food parcel for one child for five days.

And Labour has produced this chart comparing this official list with the contents of a food parcel described as unacceptable when photographed and shown on social media.

As my colleague Heather Stewart reports, No 10 is saying Keir Starmer quoted the guidance selectively.

The number of deaths from Covid-19 has again risen in Scotland, with 384 deaths from Covid registered last week, 197 more than the previous week and the highest weekly figure since early May last year.

National Records of Scotland warned however that that figure included deaths which taken place over the Christmas and New Year period, when registration offices were closed. Only 9% of those fatalities were of people aged under 65, with 113 deaths in care homes and 251 in hospitals.

NRS said they would produce more statistics next week showing deaths on date of occurrence, to help build a more accurate picture of the trend. Most of Scotland’s daily data over the holiday period has been skewed by delayed reporting due to public sector holidays.

The agency also added that it would continue using the five years from 2015 to 2019 as the comparison period for showing excess deaths from Covid. If it moved the five-year period to include last year, that would give a false picture of average deaths.

Johnson thanks teachers who are in school looking after vulnerable children and children of key workers. Around 14% of pupils are in school, he says.

Johnson tells Andrea Leadsom (Con) he is looking forward to working with her to implement the proposals in her review of early years.

Anna McMorrin (Lab) asks the PM to condemn British Gas’s “fire and rehire” tactics.

Johnson says he regards “fire and rehire” as unacceptable.

Asked about his policy on knife crime, Johnson says the government has introduced knife crime prevention orders. It takes continues law enforcement, he says. More police are being recruited, and 6,000 of the 20,000 promised at the last election have already been recruited.

Duncan Baker (Con) asks if the PM will commit to a 10-year plan to review social care.

Johnson says he is committed to reforming the sector. Plans will be brought forward “later this year”.

Jacob Young (Con), MP for Redcar, asks if the PM will set up a free port on Teesside.

Johnson says the process of deciding where free ports will go is underway.

Kevin Brennan (Lab) asks why a reciprocal work permit system for touring musicians has not been negotiated with the EU. It should be easy to fix. Will the PM agree to a meeting on this?

Johnson says he will hold a meeting on this. A reciprocal system should be in both sides’ mutual interests.

Johnson says the government is investing £2.6bn in improving flood defences.

Catherine West (Lab) says widening inequalities are tearing communities apart. Will the PM reverse the planned cut to universal credit?

Johnson says universal credit has been raised, and the national living wage has increased. He says the decision over the uplift is being reviewed. But Labour policy is to abolish universal credit, he claims. He says that is astonishing.

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, asks about the problems seafood exporters in Scotland are now having because of Brexit. When will they get the Brexit benefits the PM promised?

Johnson says the government is putting money into the industry to help it. He says he is amazed Blackford wants to reverse Brexit.

Blackford says one third of the Scottish fishing fleet is tied up in harbour. Some firms are losing £1m a day. The EU has put in place a £5bn fund to help firms affected by Brexit. Ireland is getting £1bn. When will the UK get something equivalent.

Johnson says going back into the EU would be immensely damaging to Scotland. And he accuses the SNP of spending money on the second independence referendum. He claims the SNP will not even refer to the “Oxford” vaccine.

Starmer says he wrote to the PM on 22 December saying Labour would support a lockdown. He had not seen the Sage advice at that point. He will release the letter, he says.

He says Johnson has again been too late to act. He says it is obvious further measures will be needed.

Why are restrictions less tough than last year when the situation is worse?

Johnson says the lockdown measures seem to be working.

He says Labour’s only policy is to call for an endless lockdown.

And he accuses Starmer of attacking the vaccination programme.

Starmer says the indicators were all in the wrong direction on 16 December.

He says on 18 December Sage said tougher restrictions would be needed.

But for two weeks the government sat on its hands, he says.

Johnson says he disagrees “very profoundly” with this. Within 24 hours of getting that advice on 18 December, the government put the country into much, much tougher measures.

We are now seeing some signs that is starting to have an effect, he says. But he says these are “early days”.

• Johnson says there are “some signs” that the pre-Christmas lockdown is working.

He says even at that stage Labour wanted schools to stay open. He says he understands why. But he says it is a bit much for Labour to attack him now.

Starmer says the sooner 24/7 vaccine centres are open, the better.

He says at the last PMQs, on 16 December, the PM said there was a significant reduction in the virus, no need for new restrictios to be toughened, and no need for Christmas rules to be changeopd.

Since then 17,000 people have died, 60,000 people have been hospitalised, and one million people have been infected. How did the government get it so wrong?

Johnson says Starmer did not mention the new variant. He says the government was told about this on 18 December, and how much more transmissible it was.

Sir Gary Streeter (Con) asks if the PM agrees that pupils whose exams have been scrapped this year should be told as soon as possible what the replacement system will be.

Johnson agrees.

Boris Johnson starts by offering condolences to the family and friends of the former Tory MP Brian Binley, who died over the recess period.

He says today the government is announcing plans to update the Mental Health Act.

EasyJet has said its cabin crew are being recruited by the NHS to administer coronavirus vaccines. The airline said:

As easyJet continues to operate a reduced schedule as a result of the pandemic, our furloughed crew has an ideal skill set to be able to assist in the effort to provide much-needed inoculation support to the NHS in rolling out the Covid-19 vaccine.

Crew who apply will be fast-tracked to become trained vaccinators at NHS vaccination centres across the country and will undergo online training and onsite immunisation training to become fully qualified in administering the vaccine.

Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, is giving evidence to the Commons science committee now. Asked if it is true that 10% of the vaccine is being wasted, he says that was an estimate for how much vaccine might be wasted. In fact the wastage rate is well below that, he says.

In his LBC interview this morning Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer for England, said he was “absolutely confident” with the decision to delay administering the second dose of vaccine for up to 12 weeks - even though the data on the effectiveness of a first dose dose not reach that far. He explained:

If you take an extremely purist answer and say ‘where do the data end?’, the data end at 42 days.

But if you take an expert science viewpoint, it’s just not plausible that the protective effectiveness is going to disappear after that point and we are very confident that there will be plenty of protection on board right up until the second dose is given.

According to Scott Beasley from Sky News, Sir Mene Pangalos, the AstraZeneca executive vice president, has said an eight to 12 week gap between doses for the AstraZeneca vaccine would be ideal. Pangalos was giving evidence to the Commons science committee this morning.

Government sources have confirmed that Boris Johnson spoke to Marcus Rashford this morning. (See 11.08am.) The PM called to thank Rashford for highlighting the issues around food parcels, they say. They say he said the contents of the parcel widely pictured on social media were “completely unacceptable” and that the government will be addressing the issue.

In his evidence to the Commons science committee earlier Prof Wei Shen Lim, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), gave some of the figures behind the decision to draw up a priority list based on saving most lives. (See 9.51am.) He said:

In terms of protecting people within a constrained vaccine supply, the estimates are that we have to vaccinate only about 250 people aged over 80 to save one life.

For care home residents, we only need to vaccinate somewhere between 25 to 45 care home residents to save one life.

If you were trying to vaccinate, for example, train operators, then you would have to vaccinate many thousand train operators to save a life.

It doesn’t mean that that’s not important, but it’s weighing up the values there. That’s a policy decision as to what value one wants to weigh up.

An Asda pharmacy in Birmingham will be the first supermarket to offer Covid-19 vaccinations, the retailer said. As PA Media reports, NHS England approved the use of the store as a vaccination centre, the company said, and its George clothing section will be reconfigured to operate 8am to 8pm, seven days a week and have the capacity to administer 250 jabs per day from the week beginning 25 January.

At the Commons science committee Tom Keith-Roach, president of AstraZeneca UK, told MPs that his firm would soon be supplying the government with 2m doses of vaccine per week, the Mirror’s Dan Bloom reports.

Here is video of a mother this morning describing why she thought the food parcel she received under the government scheme was inadequate.

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer for England and a regular at No 10 press conferences, told LBC this morning that he has been helping personally with the vaccination programme.

From the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg

In his evidence to the education committee Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, confirmed that the national food voucher scheme will be available for all schools in England from next week.

There are details here.

At the education committee Williamson has just been asked to justify his decision to threaten Greenwich council with legal action before Christmas to stop it closing its schools early before the holidays.

Williamson said at that stage it was government policy to keep schools open, and he claimed that at that point the government was not aware of the new variant of coronavirus and the impact it would have.

But Monday 14 December, when Williamson initiated the legal action against Greenwich, was also the day Matt Hancock, the health secretary, told MPs in statement about the new variant and that “initial analysis suggests that this variant is growing faster than the existing variants”.

Q: Wouldn’t it be better to focus on vaccinating teachers and support staff, instead of putting all this effort into testing?

Williamson says testing will continue to remain a really important part of supporting education. The vaccines will not cover under-18s until they have been trialled on that age group.

Q: Are you going to keep nurseries open?

Williamson says there is no intention to close them, and the government has not had advice saying they should close.

Labour’s Zarah Sultana asks why BAME people were not included in the JCVI priority list given their increased risk from Covid.

Lim says the JCVI advices comes in two parts, and that the second part is often overlooked. He says the first part covers the priority groups. But he says the second part also covers how those groups who are given priority are targeted and approached when being offered the virus.

He implies that at this point there is a case for BAME people being given special attention.

Lim says there is no evidence yet that the vaccines block the transmission of the virus. He says that is why the vaccination strategy does not prioritise groups on the basis that, if they were vaccinated, transmission would be reduced.

He was responding to the SNP MP Carol Monaghan who was asking whether vaccinated teachers would reduce the spread of Covid.

At the science committee Lim says the government asked the government to prioritise saving lives when drawing up its priority list for people to get the vaccine in the first phase of the vaccination programmes.

He says in the second phase of the vaccination programme (after all over-50s, health and social care workers and people with serious underlying health conditions have been vaccinated), key workers may be prioritised. But he says the priority list for this group (ie, for the under-50s) has not yet been drawn up.

At the Commons science committee Prof Wei Shen Lim, chair of the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation, has just started giving evidence.

He started by explaining why the JCVI decided to agree that the second dose of vaccines should be postponed, to allow more people to get a first dose early.

The JCVI explained its reasons for this in a paper released last month. Here is the key extract.

Published efficacy between dose 1 and 2 of the Pfizer vaccine was 52.4% (95% CI 29.5-68.4%). Based on the timing of cases accrued in the phase 3 study, most the vaccine failures in the period between doses occurred shortly after vaccination, the period before any immune response is expected. Using data for those cases observed between day 15 and 21, efficacy against symptomatic Covid-19 was estimated at 89% (95% CI 52-97%), suggesting that short term protection from dose 1 is very high from day 14 after vaccination. Similar findings were seen with the Moderna mRNA vaccine out to 108 days after the first dose (see Annex A).

The level of protection gained from a single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine was assessed in an exploratory analysis. Vaccine efficacy from 22 days post dose 1 was 73% (95% CI 48.79-85.76). High protection against hospitalisation was seen from 21 days after dose 1 until two weeks after the second dose, suggesting that a single dose of the AstraZeneca will provide high short-term protection against severe disease. Protective immunity from the first dose likely lasts for a duration of 12 weeks (unpublished data).