Boris Johnson news – live: PM says stop and search is ‘kind and loving’, as experts criticise crime policy

Ministers should set up vaccination centres in university campuses to ensure students are fully-jabbed before the winter, Labour has suggested.

Shadow education secretary Kate Green told the Conservatives to “get a grip” following reports that students could be required to be double-vaccinated against Covid-19 in order to attend university lectures.

It comes amid a row in the Conservative Party over whether “passport vaccines” should be used checked to make sure students have had their jabs.

On Monday, education minister Vicky Ford repeatedly refused to rule out that students could be required to be fully vaccinated in order to attend lectures in person and live in halls of residence.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson had suggested the move in order to help drive up the rates of young people taking up the vaccination, The Times reported.

Last week, the University and College Union (UCU) called on the government to work with education providers and local and regional health service providers to offer full vaccinations to students before September.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady has welcomed Labour joining in the calls for “all eligible students to be vaccinated”.

The UK needs to be wary about its relations with China as Beijing embarks on a new cold war, a former Australian prime minister and government trade adviser has warned.

Tony Abbott, a member of the Board of Trade, said the Asian economic powerhouse was weaponising trade and urged Britain to guard against selling key businesses to the Chinese or even collaborating at higher education level.

In a speech delivered at an event hosted by think tank Policy Exchange, Mr Abbott said: “After 40 years of bide and hide, China is asserting itself aggressively in what is at best a cold peace and more likely a new cold war, only against a strategic competitor that is far more formidable than the old Soviet Union because it is being increasing embedded inside the global economy and can bring economic as well as military pressure to bear against its targets.

“Barring a change of dynasty in Beijing, China is likely to be the challenge of the century with big implications for economics as well as security.”

Mr Abbott said the UK should not stop trading but should instead be “much more careful” about becoming economically dependent on China and assess where projects have “far more long-term value for them than us”.

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove has branded those who refuse a vaccine “selfish” and warned they will be barred from some events.

The UK government is mulling the use of vaccine passports for some large scale events such as football matches, having already announced they will be required for nightclub entry in England from the end of September.

But Mr Gove warned those who refused to be jabbed may not be able to access such events.

Speaking to the PA news agency during a visit to the Lighthouse Lab in Glasgow, he said: “Ultimately, if you can be vaccinated and you refuse to, that is a selfish act.

“You’re putting other people’s health and lives at risk, you should get vaccinated.”

When asked if refusal to be jabbed should prevent attendance at some mass events, the minister said: “It depends on which part of the United Kingdom you’re in and what the nature of the event is.

“But if you deliberately refuse to get vaccinated and there are certain venues and certain events that require a certain level of safety, then, you know, the terms in which you will be able to get into those venues and those events will be barred to you.”

An expert in criminal rehabilitation has said the government’s plans for hi-vis chain gangs may not reduce reoffending as much as other methods.

Tom Gash, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government, said “much more impact” could be had with skills training and drug treatment than with the proposals launched by the PM today.

Mr Gash told the BBC’s World at One programme: “The problem is in terms of reducing reoffending rates it probably doesn’t do much good and it’s certainly a sense that when you speak to people and do qualitative research with people who have committed offences and done high-visibility community service they tend to say they feel feelings of shame, which aren’t necessarily positive.

“On the flipside, we don’t really know whether the public feel more confident when they see this stuff. So, we could benefit from this new initiative in terms of learning about whether this has benefits for public confidence.”

He added: “My concern would simply be that we do know how to reduce reoffending in other ways. If we had a focus on drug treatment, cognitive behavioural therapy, building social skills, the usual education, employment, housing sort of issues that underpin a portion of offending then we could have much more impact with the same money.”

A senior trade adviser to Boris Johnson has said that he expects the sale of a Welsh semiconductor firm to a Chinese-owned company to be blocked, after the prime minister asked his national security adviser to review it.

Former Australian PM Tony Abbott said that his country would not allow a deal like Nexperia’s £63m takeover of Newport Wafer Fab, and believed that the UK was now “obviously… moving in a comparable direction”.

Our political editor Andrew Woodcock has more details:

A Government minister has said it is “perfectly reasonable” for people to work in hi-vis “chain gangs” as punishment for low-level crime.

Policing minister Kit Malthouse said the plans for teams of unpaid workers, in what the prime minister had earlier called chain gangs, were a means of “restorative justice”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme: “Unpaid work and community service has been part of the criminal justice system for some time, but I think it is also about illustrating to offenders that we all play a role in the collective health of our society.”

He added: “First of all it may be the individual doesn’t want to repeat that experience but, secondly, it may show to them that in a way it is restorative justice. You will know that restorative justice is where the perpetrator effectively had to make some kind of recompense to the victim.”

Mr Malthouse later said: “People who are paying their debts to society are doing this work to improve the environment in which they and the rest of us live, and that seems to be a perfectly reasonable thing to ask them to do.”

Boris Johnson has expressed concern about the amorous activities of his rescue dog Dilyn.

The prime minister complained about his pet exercising his romantic urges “on people’s legs” in Downing Street.

Mr Johnson was speaking to police dog handlers after witnessing a display by the Surrey Police’s canine officers.

At the force’s headquarters in Guildford, he was chatting to one officer about the behaviour of German shepherd Zorro.

“Do you have to worry about his romantic urges,” the prime minister asked.

After being told there were no such concerns with Zorro, Mr Johnson shook his head and said “my dog is endless…. on people’s legs”.

The former health minister Ken Clarke has said he was “not responsible” for blood products in the early days of the infected blood scandal, an inquiry heard.

Appearing before the Infected Blood Inquiry to give evidence over three days, Lord Clarke said the controversy surrounding the blood products was something that “hardly ever came across my desk”.

My colleague Tom Batchelor has more on this story below:

Boris Johnson’s comments on the use of stop and search powers by police can be found in full below:

Labour’s shadow home secretary has accused Boris Johnson of being “soft on crime” following the unveiling of the government’s crime-reduction strategy.

“Eleven years in office and not even an apology from the PM for the rising crime resulting from cutting preventative services and reducing our police,” Nick Thomas-Symonds said.

“Soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime.”