Nicola Sturgeon suggests Scotland easing delay as cases five times higher than early May – as it happened

• A further relaxation of Covid controls across Scotland is likely to be pushed back by three weeks, Nicola Sturgeon has said, meaning that the next significant easing could coincide with England on 19 July after Boris Johnson announced a four-week delay on Monday.

• Every adult in England will be able to book their first Covid-19 vaccination from the end of this week, the head of the NHS has disclosed.

• Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has suggested Britain will have to learn to live with Covid deaths at a certain level. (See 9.27am.)

• The Metropolitan police have been described as “institutionally corrupt” and its commissioner, Cressida Dick, personally censured for obstruction by an independent inquiry set up to review the murder of the private detective Daniel Morgan.

• The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has called for more information about protections for UK farmers in a new trade deal with Australia, as it emerged that some tariff-free protection periods will expire in as little as five years.

• Gove has announced plans to make more civil servant posts open to external talent. All senior civil service jobs will advertised externally and new, flexible entry routes to the civil service will be developed. Gove announced the moves as part of a “Declaration on Government Reform” (pdf). Unveiling it in a speech, he said:

On some past occasions, it has been regrettable that reform overall was seen as something driven by politicians, against the mulish opposition of bureaucrats. It is a missed opportunity when reform is felt as something done by ministers to civil servants, rather than with them. And greater openness in the deployment of outside talent to drive progress should never be understood as somehow a replacement for or usurpation of the vital role civil servants play.

The declaration published today is the fruit of discussion between ministers and officials. That is why when this morning cabinet ministers and permanent secretaries met together – for the first time – to approve the declaration, there was a unity of resolve that we need to see these changes through.

• The deceit employed by Martin Bashir to land his sensational 1995 Panorama interview with Diana, Princess of Wales has been branded “one of the biggest crimes in the history of broadcasting” by John Birt, the BBC’s director general at the time.

• The home secretary and Downing Street have condemned an incident in which a senior BBC journalist was angrily confronted and pursued by anti-lockdown protesters as “appalling and distressing”.

That’s all from me for today. But our coronavirus coverage continues on our global live blog. It’s here.

Thirty million Britons have now had a second dose of vaccine, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has announced.

The latest figures show that 41,830,546 across the UK have now been vaccinated with a first dose (79.4% of adults), while 30,204,738 people have had both doses (57.3%).

Sturgeon says the Scottish government will be announcing three other measures next week.

She says, although there will probably be a three-week pause in easing restrictions, some minor changes might be allowed.

She says the Scottish government will publish a paper describing what life will look like as Scotland gets back towards normal, going beyond level 0.

(Even at level 0, some rules would remain. Most of Scotland is now at level 1 or level 2.)

And the government will also publish its review of social distancing, she says.

She says the government is also making preparations to vaccinate 12- to 17-year-olds, if the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommends that.

Sturgeon says, when the next three-week review of restrictions is announced next week, she is likely to announcing a pause in the lifting of restrictions.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is making a statement to MSPs about Covid.

She says there will be no changes to Covid regulations in Scotland this week. The next three weekly review will be a week today, she says.

And she reads out the latest figures.

She says cases are now five times higher than they were in early May.

Here are the main points from the Downing Street lobby briefing.

• Downing Street condemned the conduct of the anti-lockdown protesters in London yesterday who harassed and threatened the BBC reporter Nicholas Watt. Asked about the treatment of Watt, Newsnight’s political editor, the PM’s spokesperson said:

This footage is deeply disturbing and journalists should never face that kind of behaviour. The right to protest may be fundamental in our democracy but violence, threats and intimidation like this is never acceptable.

Here is footage of the incident.

Labour has also condemned what happened to Watt. Jo Stevens, the shadow culture secretary, said:

This extremely disturbing footage showing clear intimidation of a journalist while carrying out his job is absolutely unacceptable and should be condemned in the strongest terms.

It is shocking that a BBC lanyard makes someone a target like this.

• The PM’s spokesperson said No 10 was taking the Speaker’s complaints about what happened yesterday very seriously. Asked about Johnson’s meeting with the Speaker to discuss this (see 2.16pm), the spokesperson said:

I haven’t spoken to the prime minister but this is a matter that is taken very seriously ... You will appreciate the prime minister was in travel to Nato yesterday, and held cabinet, and also was finalising the agreement as regards to the trade deal last night and this morning.

• The spokesperson said Johnson still had confidence in Dame Cressida Dick, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police.

Boris Johnson still has confidence in the Metropolitan police commissioner following the publication of the Daniel Morgan report, according to Downing Street.
Asked if the prime minister still had full confidence in Dame Cressida Dick during a Westminster briefing, his official spokesperson simply replied: “Yes.”

The brother of Daniel Morgan said the Met commissioner, Cressida Dick, should “absolutely” be considering her position in light of the report into his murder. After the panel report found the Met was institutionally corrupt, Daniel’s brother Alastair was asked whether Dick should consider resigning. He responded: “Absolutely she should.”

As PA Media reports, the family’s solicitor Raju Bhatt added:

You heard from the panel that the institutionalised corruption that they found is a current problem in the present tense. The current leadership in the Met has to take responsibility for that continuing.

Priti Patel, the home secretary, says no redactions to the report were required. But she had to take account of national security issues, he says.

The report is over 1,200 pages long, she says.

It is “deeply alarming” and finds examples of corrupt behaviour, not limited to the first investigation.

She says the report accuses the Metropolitan police of a form of institutional corruption.

We look to the police to protect us, she says. She says the overwhelming majority of officers used their powers properly. But it is terrible when officers misuse this power.

She says this has been “one of the most devastating episodes in the history of the Metropolitan police”.

Priti Patel, the home secretary, is about to make a statement about the Daniel Morgan murder inquiry report.

Our story on what the report says is here.

Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, has said that the trade deal with the UK is “the most comprehensive and ambitious agreement that Australia has concluded”. The only similar one is Australia’s deal with New Zealand, he said.

Speaking at No 10, Morrison also that the deal could “open the pathway” for the UK’s entry into the the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership). He said:

We want to see the UK making the CPTPP even stronger than it is now, it’s an outstanding arrangement, it’s the most modern multilateral trade agreement in the world today and to have the United Kingdom as part of that strengthens it.

Labour has sought to capitalise on what it thinks is one of the strongest lines of attack against the delay in lifting restrictions across England, blaming Boris Johnson for letting the Delta variant that originated in India seep through Britain’s “lax” borders.

In a speech this morning, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, said the “Johnson variant” had only fuelled so many case rises because of ministers’ “negligence and incompetence”.

Trying to counter the government’s dismissal that “hindsight is a wonderful thing”, Thomas-Symonds said India should have been put on the red list 14 days earlier, when Pakistan and Bangladesh were - dubbing the wait a “fortnight of failure”. He said:

The PM owes an apology to the British people. He should change the habit of a lifetime and take personal responsibility for his failure of leadership.

Thomas-Symonds told the Guardian that Johnson only delayed putting India on the red list because he wanted a photo op with the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, at a trade agreement signing, branding the prime minister “unbelievably reckless”.

Ahead of a vote in parliament tomorrow on extending restrictions which Labour will support, Thomas-Symonds emphasised that he wants 19 July to be the final stage of unlocking - but “whether it will be, will depend upon the measures the government actually takes”.

Ideas he suggested included increasing financial support for people who need to self-isolate or rely on statutory sick pay, and scrapping the amber list, meaning any travellers arriving from risky countries would have to pay to quarantine in a hotel for 14 days.

Labour’s popularity has plunged since the vaccine rollout got under way and Johnson set out the roadmap out of lockdown back in February, leaving the party searching for an effective series of attack lines that resonate strongly with the public.

Given opinion polls suggest the majority of people back keeping restrictions in place for another month, Labour’s focus will be on painting this latest delay as avoidable. In particular, expect it to point to a figure from the Civil Aviation Authority, which said 20,000 passengers arrived from India in the two weeks before it was put on the red list.

Whether the public will let that fly, remains to be seen.

Speaking at the NHS Confederation annual conference, Sir Simon Stevens, the NHS England chief executive, said that over the next few months a new treatment for Covid may become available. He said:

We expect that we will begin to see further therapies that will actually treat coronavirus and prevent severe illness and death.

Today I’m asking the health service to gear up for what are likely to be a new category of such treatments - so-called neutralising monoclonal antibodies - which are potentially going to become available to us within the next several months.

But in order to be able to administer them, we’re going to need community services that are able to deliver through regional networks this type of infusion in patients before they are hospitalised - typically within a three-day window from the date of infection.

Stevens also said that the age profile of Covid patients being hospitalised now had changed dramatically since January. He explained:

At the moment about 1% of hospital beds in England are occupied by patients with a Covid diagnosis and the age distribution has really flipped as a result of vaccination. Back in January, it was 60/40 - 60% of beds occupied by people over 65, 40% (occupied by people) under 65. Now it’s flipped to 30/70, so it’s about 30% occupied by people aged 65 and over 70% by younger people whose prospects are much greater.

Boris Johnson has said that the free trade deal with Australia will “benefit British farmers”. Speaking at No 10 after agreeing the deal with Scott Morrison, his Australian counterpart, he said:

It will be good news for British car manufacturers, it will be good news for British services, for British financial services and it will be good news for the agricultural sector on both sides.

Here, we had to negotiate very hard and I want everybody to understand that this is a sensitive sector for both sides and we’ve got a deal that runs over 15 years and contains the strongest possible provisions for animal welfare.

But I think it is a good deal and I think it’s one that will benefit British farmers and British consumers as well. It will also make it easier for British people, for young people to go and work in Australia.

The National Farmers’ Union has strongly contested the claim that their members will benefit from the deal. Last month, when it was first reported that the deal would allow Australian farmers tariff-free access to the UK market after a 15-year transition, the NFU said: “We continue to maintain that a tariff-free trade deal with Australia will jeopardise our own farming industry and will cause the demise of many, many beef and sheep farms throughout the UK. This is true whether tariffs are dropped immediately or in 15 years’ time.”

Johnson also said a key benefit of the deal was that it would increase the chances of the UK being able to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), one of the largest free trade areas in the world covering 11 Pacific nations. He said:

More importantly than perhaps all of that, this is the first freestanding, free trade deal the UK has done since Brexit and it’s also therefore a prelude to further deals. And it’s the way into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

And Johnson has posted this on Twitter.

All adults in England should be able to book a coronavirus vaccination by the end of this week, Sir Simon Stevens, the NHS England chief executive, said this morning.

Speaking to the NHS Confederation annual conference, Stevens said:

It is now very important that we use the next four weeks to finish the job to the greatest extent possible for the Covid vaccination programme, which has been a historic signature achievement in terms of the effectiveness of delivering by the NHS - over 60 million doses now administered.

By July 19 we aim to have offered perhaps two-thirds of adults across the country double jabbed.

And we’re making great strides also in extending the offer to all adults - today people aged 23 and 24 are able to vaccinate through the national booking service.

I expect that by the end of this week, we’ll be able to open up the national booking service to all adults age 18 and above.

Of course, vaccine supply continues to be constrained, so we’re pacing ourselves at precisely the rate of which we’re getting that extra vaccine supply between now and 19 July.

UK unemployment fell for the fourth month in a row in April as businesses took on more staff in response to the relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions, my colleague Richard Partington reports.

No 10 has announced that Boris Johnson and his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, have agreed a free trade deal. It is significant because, although the UK has agreed plenty of other trade deals since Brexit, until now those have all been deals that predominantly just replicate the trade deals the UK had as a member of the EU. This one is genuinely new.

The full text of an “agreement in principle” will be published in the coming days, No 10 says, but here are the main points from the No 10 press release.

• The deal will eliminate tariffs on all UK goods going to Australia, No 10 says. UK-Australia trade was worth £13.9bn in 2020, and No 10 says this is now set to grow.

• British households will save up to £34m per year because of tariff cuts making Australian imports cheaper, No 10 says. But given that there are around 28m households in the UK, this saving is minimal. It amounts to an average saving of about £1.20 per household.

• British farmers will be protected for 15 years “using tariff-rate quotas and other safeguards”, No 10 says.

• The deal includes measures to allow Britons under the age of 35 to travel and work in Australia more freely, No 10 says.

• No 10 says industries that employ 3.5 million people in the UK could benefit. It names car manufacturing, Scotch whisky, confectionery, biscuits and ceramics as sectors that will benefit from tariff-free access to the Australian market.

• The 13,000 small and medium-sized businesses that already export to Australia will face less bureaucracy, No 10 says.

Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s story on the deal.

Good morning. Following last night’s announcement about the four-week delay to the easing of the remaining lockdown restrictions in England, Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has been touring the studios this morning. A lot of what he said echoed what Boris Johnson said at his press conference, but two lines stood out from his Today interview.

• Gove suggested the UK would have to learn to live with Covid deaths at a certain level. Asked if the country could end up having hundreds of deaths a day after restrictions get lifted in July, as Prof Graham Medley, a government adviser, told the programme might happen, Gove replied:

As the prime minister and Chris Whitty said at the press conference last night, we’re going to have to learn to live with Covid, and it’s a very nasty virus. We can provide people with the best protection possible through the vaccination programme. But, as with flu, we know that that every year there are a number of people who contract it, and every year certainly there are a number of people who are hospitalised and who suffer as a result of it.

When asked if that meant living with hundreds of deaths a day, Gove did not deny the possibility, but he stressed he was not an epidemiologist. Asked if a long-term death toll like this might be acceptable, Gove replied:

I think it’s a fair question, but I’d look at it the other way around. The key thought, in my mind, is how do we provide the maximum level of protection to all.

Earlier Medley, professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), told the programme that Covid deaths could rise to hundreds per day after the lifting of all remaining restrictions. “I think that’s quite possible it’s not a certainty,” he said. “There is a lot of uncertainty, but I think that’s quite possible.”

• Gove did not rule out some Covid restrictions continuing beyond July. And he also suggested that partial working from home would become permanent for some people. Asked if restrictions might continue until the spring, he said the government wanted to get rid of every possible restriction. He went on:

Now I suspect - and I’m not advocating this, I just suspect it may be the case - I think we may see different workplaces allowing people to work from home at certain points, as well as coming into the office. I think there may be changes to the way that we live ... We won’t go back to the status quo ante.

When it was put to him that he was not ruling out restrictions continuing until the spring, he did not challenge this.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The ONS publishes its weekly death figures for England and Wales.

9.30am: Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, gives a speech on border controls.

9.45am: Sir Simon Stevens, the outgoing NHS England chief executive, gives a speech to the NHS Confederation conference.

10am: Lord Hall, the former director general of the BBC, gives evidence to the Commons culture committee about the Martin Bashir/Diana interview scandal; he will be followed by Lord Birt, another former DG at 10.45am and by Tim Davie, the current DG, and Richard Sharp, the BBC chair, at 11.30am.

10am: Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools, gives evidence to the Commons education committee about sexual abuse in schools.

11.30m: Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, gives a speech on civil service reform.

12pm: Downing Street is expected to hold its daily lobby briefing.

12.30pm: Priti Patel, the home secretary, delivers a Commons statement to mark the publication of the report into the murder of Daniel Morgan.

2.20pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, gives a statement to MSPs about Covid.

Politics Live has been a mix of Covid and non-Covid news recently, and that will probably be the case today. For global coronavirus developments, do read our global live blog.

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