Brexit news – live: Starmer blasts Johnson for ‘slow, slow, slow’ Covid response as Amazon halts more NI sales

No 10 has rejected Nicola Sturgeon’s suggested that Boris Johnson shouldn’t bother heading up to Scotland later this week.

The PM’s official spokesman said: “It remains a fact that it is a fundamental role of the PM to be the physical representative of the UK government.

“And it is right that he is visible and accessible to communities, businesses and the public across all parts of the UK, especially during this pandemic.”

Conservative MP Peter Bone has claimed the EU’s “bureaucracy, inefficiency and petty politics” had delayed its vaccine programme – asking Boris Johnson if Brexit had aided the UK’s response.

The PM replied in the Commons: “We certainly were able to use speed and agility to deliver on the programme that we needed to do,” adding that the UK had been able to do things “better in some ways” after Brexit.

“I think it’d have been a great pity if we’d followed the advice of the leader of the opposition who said stay in the EU vaccines programme.”

A unionist in Northern Ireland has called for Brexit co-operation with the Republic of Ireland to be frozen and work implementing the post-Brexit protocol to be abandoned.

Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) leader Jim Allister – angry over the sea border – said the DUP leaders at Stormont should stop officials operating Irish Sea port checks on goods from the rest of the UK.

Allister, his party’s representative at the Stormont Assembly, said: “I suggest unionist parties within the executive should publicly and jointly refuse to operate the north-south arrangements unless and until the protocol is addressed.”

The UK is offering EU citizens financial incentives to leave the UK and return to their country of origin – a move that activists say “undermines” the government’s claim it is encouraging EU citizens to get settled status.

EU citizens were quietly added to the government’s voluntary returns scheme from 1 January, which is meant to help migrants in specific situations leave the UK voluntarily – and includes up to £2,000 in resettlement money.

The Public Interest Law Centre criticised the offer of money to return to the continent as contradictory.

The centre’s Benjamin Morgan said: “This mixed messaging around settled status on the one hand and voluntary returns on the other, seriously undermines the government’s claim that the rights of vulnerable Europeans will be protected after Brexit.”

Switching back to Brexit now. The National Crime Agency (NCA) has said procedures for arresting suspected criminals in other countries – despite the loss of the European Arrest Warrant – look “positive”.

Senior NCA official Steve Rodhouse said important provisions like the ability to arrest on an Interpol red notice have been preserved, along with timescales for the surrender of suspects.

He added: “The mechanics look positive. It is a new process, it is not well-practised, it is early days and we need to see how it operates.”

Keir Starmer has responded to Boris Johnson’s statement on schools, lockdown easing and quarantine hotels. The Labour leader called on the prime minister to bring forward the vaccination of key workers.

He said the government could “use the window of February half-term” to vaccinate all teachers and teaching assistants. “There’s a clear week there where that should be done.”

And Starmer again attacked Johnson’s handling of the Covid crisis. “Is he really saying to those grieving families that their loss was just inevitable, and none of the 100,000 deaths could have been avoided?”

Boris Johnson – making a statement in the Commons now – said No 10 will publish a plan to ease restrictions on 22 February, when “we will be in a better position to chart a course out of lockdown”. 

On schools, he said: “It will not be possible to re-open schools immediately after the February half-term. I know how frustrating that will be.”

He said he hoped it would be “safe to begin” the reopening of schools by 8 March.

Johnson also confirmed foreign nationals and residents returning from 22 “red list” countries will be placed in quarantine in government-provided accommodation such as hotels for 10 days – but said home secretary Priti Patel would give more details later.

Britain will freeze any Russian state assets wherever the government has evidence they may be used to threaten the life or property of UK nationals or residents, a minister at the foreign office, Wendy Morton, said on Wednesday.

“We will freeze Russian state assets wherever we have the evidence that they may be used to threaten the life or property of UK nationals or residents,” Morton told parliament.

She also called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Boris Johnson will host a Downing Street press conference later today, No 10 has confirmed.

Boris Johnson said the home secretary, Priti Patel, will lay out “tougher measures” for the border this afternoon.

“We have one of the toughest regimes in the world. We ask people to test 72 hours before they fly, they have to produce a passenger locator form otherwise they can be kicked off the flight.

“They already have to quarantine for 10 days and my right honourable friend the Home Secretary will be setting later today, if he cared to wait for that, even tougher measures for those red-list countries where we are particularly concerned about new variants.”