Markus Andrews

Young teenagers should be given a second Covid vaccination – as in most European countries – to curb a worrying surge in infections, Neil Ferguson says.Case rates are rising most sharply in teenagers, but 12 to 15-year-olds will receive only a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine under current plans, the leading epidemiologist pointed out.“Most other European countries are ahead of us in vaccinating teenagers and they are giving them two doses, not just one dose,” said Professor Ferguson, of Imperial College London.“And we know that two doses really are needed to block infection and to prevent transmission.”Prof Ferguson joined other leading scientists in calling for booster doses for older, at-risk people to be “accelerated”, as well as vaccination rates for teenagers.Nearly 50,000 people tested positive for Covid in figures released on Monday and deaths are rising again to 869 in the last week, reported within the last 28 days.The epidemiologist said the UK was being hit by waning immunity, both because many people were jabbed earlier than in other countries and because they received the slightly-less-effective AstraZeneca vaccine.But he told BBC Radio 4: “We are not in same position as last year and I don’t think it’s a reason to panic right now.”The government has ruled out a move to its ‘Plan B’ – vaccine passports for crowded venues and the return of mask-wearing and working-from-home – for the time being.But Prof Ferguson said the “worst case” scenario is that the NHS struggles to cope over the winter and “something additional needs to be done”.“There may be a Plan B that needs to be implemented that involves some rolling back of measures, but I doubt that it will get close to lockdown,” he said.Under current rules, 16 and 17-year-olds are being given two doses, but the younger cohort will only receive a second if a medical condition puts them at higher risk.The chief medical officers across the UK say that a second dose should not be considered for most 12 to 15-year-olds before the spring term.But evidence suggests that a single jab cuts the risk of catching the more-virulent Delta variant of Covid by only about 55 per cent.Furthermore, the rollout has been slow in England because the jabs are only being delivered in schools – not in clinics, or vaccination centres, as in Scotland and Wales.Although parental consent is sought, under-16s who can prove they understand the risks and benefits can ask for the vaccine – or refuse it – if they disagree with their parents.On the lack of Covid restrictions, Prof Ferguson added: “It’s notable, clearly, that most Western European countries have kept in place more control measures – vaccine mandates, mask-wearing mandates – and tend to have lower case numbers and certainly not case numbers which are going up as fast as we’ve got.“But, at the end of the day, this is a policy decision for government to make.” More

Britain will not “pitchfork away” investment from China despite ongoing differences with Beijing over human rights and Hong Kong, Boris Johnson has said.Ahead of the Global Investment Summit in London, the Prime Minister said China would continue to play a “gigantic part” in UK economic life for years to come.At the same time, he insisted the Government would not be “naive” about allowing China access to the UK’s critical national infrastructure (CNI) such as nuclear power or the 5G communications network.”I’m not going to tell you the UK government is going to pitchfork away every overture from China,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg.”China is a gigantic part of our economic life and will be for a long time – for our lifetime.”But that does not mean that we should be naive in the way we look at our critical natural infrastructure – you mention nuclear power, you mention 5G technology – those are all legitimate concerns for any government.”We should be cautious about how we handle our CNI and about how we handle FDI (foreign direct investment) from China …. that is why we have brought in some of the legislation that we have.”His comments come after China reacted furiously to a new defence pact the UK signed with the United States and Australia aimed at countering Beijing’s increasing military assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.Mr Johnson said that despite such differences, UK trade with China had continued to grow.”I am no Sino-phobe, very far from it. China is a great country, a great civilisation,” he said.”In spite of all the difficulties, in spite of all the difficult conversations about the Dalai Lama or Hong Kong or the Uighurs – where we will continue to stick to our views – trade with China has continued to expand for a very long time.”Mr Johnson would not be drawn on whether he expected China’s President Xi Jinping to attend the Cop26 international climate change talks taking place next month in Glasgow.But he acknowledged they faced some “extremely tough” negotiations if they were to reach an agreement that would keep global temperature rises to 1.5C.”I think Cop was always going to be extremely tough,” he said.”What we want people to focus on is their nationally determined contributions in reducing their C02, making those hard pledges.”We need to keep 1.5 alive, we need to restrict the growth in temperatures to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century.”We think by the commitments we are seeing we could do (it) but we are going to need some real action from the participants in Glasgow.” More

Around 150 school staff from across England are set to protest at Downing Street to call on chancellor Rishi Sunak to increase funding for council-run nursery schools.The school leaders’ union NAHT said that representatives would gather in Parliament Square on Tuesday afternoon, alongside parents and MPs, before marching to Downing Street.Some 2,000 school leaders, staff and educators have signed a petition urging Mr Sunak to take action to provide “adequate funding” for council-run schools, which have been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.Campaigners warn that maintained nursery schools, many of which are situated in the most disadvantaged areas of England, need more support to address the impact of the pandemic on young children’s education.Unions have said that some schools have been forced to cut staff and services due to lost income and additional Covid-19 costs, alongside a lack of certainty over the funding they will receive next year.“Maintained nursery schools provide the highest quality education and care to children in some of the most disadvantaged parts of England,” the petition said.“They support a high proportion of children with special educational needs who would otherwise have nowhere to go, and children on the early years pupil premium.“They have a vital role to play supporting educational recovery and the levelling up agenda.”It added: “We therefore call on you [Mr Sunak] to take urgent action to provide adequate funding for maintained nursery schools and support to address the impact of the pandemic.”School staff are calling for resources “to put in place a long-term viable funding solution” ahead of Mr Sunak’s spending review which is expected later this month.“Maintained nursery schools have been left in limbo for four years, under threat of closure,” Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said.“As we head towards the comprehensive spending review it is critical, now more than ever, that the chancellor delivers once and for all for the sector.”In response to the petition, a Department for Education spokesperson insisted that ministers had put forward “unprecedented investment” for childcare in recent years.“We’ve made an unprecedented investment in childcare over the past decade, spending more than £3.5bn in each of the past three years on our free childcare offers and increasing the hourly rate paid to councils above inflation for the past two years,” the spokesperson said.“We are also making millions more available through our early years recovery work to level up children’s outcomes.”They added that council-run nursery schools provided “valuable services” and the government remained committed to their long-term funding.Additional reporting by PA More

Ministers will struggle to deliver much-needed reforms to the Mental Health Act, including the tackling of racial disparities, unless the Chancellor invests in the psychiatric workforce in next week’s Spending Review, warns the Royal College of Psychiatrists.The Mental Health Act allows people to be detained in a mental health hospital if they are very mentally unwell and are a risk to themselves or others. Black people are four times more likely to be detained than their white counterparts, with white people the least likely ethnic group to be detained under the Act.The Government has proposed welcome changes to the Act to tackle these racial disparities while also improving patient care and increasing safeguards. This landmark reform also seeks to ensure that an individual’s dignity, autonomy, and human rights are protected when subjected to the Act.Now, a new report commissioned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists has found that the proposed changes will result in an increased workload for psychiatrists; to implement these vital reforms, an additional 333 psychiatrists are needed by 2023/24, and a further 161 by 2033/34.The Royal College of Psychiatrists is calling on the Chancellor to use the upcoming Spending Review to commit a cumulative £82million to pay for the 349 psychiatrists that are required over the three-year Spending Review period. Additional funding will be needed after the three years to deliver the extra 145 psychiatrists needed by 2033/34. More

The government’s long-awaited plan to overhaul how Britain heats its homes for the climate emergency has been branded “inadequate” and “not a very good start” by environmentalists. Just 90,000 of the UK’s 22 million gas-heated households will benefit from £5,000 grants to replace their boilers with green heat pumps – assistance which will not even cover the costs of the 0.4 per cent of households who benefit. And ministers have ignored the advice of their scientific advisors and failed to bring forward the phase-out date for the sale of new gas boilers, with sales to continue as late as 2035 despite looming climate targets.Under the plans released by the government overnight a £450m boiler upgrade fund would be spread over three years until 2024, with grants provided to help replace just 30,000 boilers each year. Boris Johnson has previously set a target of installing 600,000 heat pumps a year across homes and public buildings by 2028 – which campaigners say he is now unlikely to meet.The government is betting on the price of heat pumps and other green heating systems coming down rapidly, and is providing a £60m “innovation fund” to encourage that process.But campaigners say households need more help if climate targets are to be met. Just 67,000 heat pumps were sold in the UK in 2021 according to industry figures, compared to around a million and a half new gas boilers. “£450m pounds delivered via individual £5,000 grants means 90,000 heat pump installations over three years. That just isn’t very much, and won’t meet the prime minister’s ambition of 600,000 a year by 2028,” said Mike Childs, head of science, policy and research at Friends of the Earth, who described the government’s plan as “quite modest”.”Investment will drive down the cost of heat pumps, and technical innovation plus skills training is a part of this, but so is scale. These grants will only incentivise the best-off households.”Greenpeace UK’s climate campaigner, Caroline Jones, said: “Sadly the government has stopped short of what’s required to transform our housing into the clean, affordable, energy efficient homes that we all want and need to be living in. “Housing is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise but the government is making it all the more difficult by leaving half its tools in the toolbox, with unambitious policies and inadequate funding.”She added: “More money must be provided to rapidly increase the number of homeowners switching to heat pumps over the next few years, with full costs covered for families on low incomes. A clearer signal would have been a phase-out of new boilers before 2035. And all of this must be delivered with a fully funded, nationwide programme to insulate our homes at a scale and speed that the government hasn’t fully grasped.”The government’s committee on climate change, a statutory body which advises ministers on how to meet net zero, had also recommended bringing forward the phase-out date for gas boilers to 2032.But this recommendation was nowhere to be found in the government’s strategy, with the date staying at 2035, potentially baking in millions of new gas boilers in the intervening years. The government has a legally binding target to hit net zero by 2050, though some scientists argue the date needs to be brought forward to avoid catastrophic climate change.The committee says that in order to meet climate targets, by 2030 at least 80 per cent of all new heat installations need to be low-carbon systems like heat pumps – around 1 million installations a year. Announcing the new policy, Boris Johnson said: “As we clean up the way we heat our homes over the next decade, we are backing our brilliant innovators to make clean technology like heat pumps as cheap to buy and run as gas boilers – supporting thousands of green jobs. “Our new grants will help homeowners make the switch sooner, without costing them extra, so that going green is the better choice when their boiler needs an upgrade.”But Labour’s shadow business secretary Ed Miliband branded the plan a “meagre, unambitious and wholly inadequate response”.“Families up and down the country desperately needed Labour’s 10-year plan investing £6bn a year for home insulation and zero carbon heating to cut bills by £400 per year, improve our energy security, create jobs and reduce carbon emissions,” he said.“People can’t warm their homes with yet more of Boris Johnson’s hot air but that is all that is on offer.”Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse described the policy as “a kick in the teeth for families across the country facing soaring energy bills this winter”.“These proposals will do nothing to lift people out of fuel poverty and hardly make a dent in the emissions produced from homes. And they will help around just 1 in 300 homes, whilst millions of households face record high bills due to rising gas prices,” she said.“We urgently need an emergency programme of investment to better insulate our homes, cut emissions and end fuel poverty. Instead the government is delaying the inevitable while condemning millions to eye-watering bills for years to come.” More

MPs are urging Boris Johnson to end the long delay to a crackdown on social media abuse after the killing of David Amess and the “toxic environment” laid bare.An Online Harms Bill – to hit tech companies failing to remove illegal and harmful content with huge fines – was promised as long ago as 2019, but there is still no date for it to be launched.During tributes to the slain Southend West MP, fellow Conservative Mark Francois said the legislation must now be put “on to the statute book” – and proposed that it be called “David’s law”.Earlier, Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle made the same criticism – as he revealed a car bomb threat – saying: “If it was up to me and I was in charge of legislation, I would have done something.” In the Commons, Mr Francois said his friend had become “increasingly concerned about what he called the toxic environment in which MPs, particularly female MPs, were having to operate in”.“He was appalled by what he called the vile misogynistic abuse which female MPs had to endure online and he told me very recently that he wanted something done about it,” he said of Sir David.“I suggest that, if we want to ensure that our colleague didn’t die in vain, we collectively all of us pick up the baton, regardless of our party and take the forthcoming Online Harms Bill and toughen it up markedly.“So let’s put, if I may be so presumptuous, David’s law onto the statute book – the essence of which would be that, while people in public life must remain open to legitimate criticism, they can no longer be vilified or their families subject to the most horrendous abuse, especially from people who hide behind a cloak of anonymity with the connivance of the social media companies for profit.”After the abuse of England footballers at Euro 2020, then-culture secretary Oliver Dowden said the new laws would be introduced by the end of December.But his replacement by Nadine Dorries, in last month’s cabinet reshuffle, has sparked concerns that there will be a further delay.With the continued shock at the second killing of an MP in just over five years, more MPs have revealed the abuse they have suffered – and frustration at the police’ failure to act.Former Labour MP Paula Sherriff said West Yorkshire Police officers “laughed” at her after she reported a death threat, while deputy prime minister Dominic Raab revealed three threats on “life and limb” in just two years.In the Commons, Mr Johnson led the tributes to Sir David, hailing him as one of the “nicest, kindest and most gentle” MPs – and announcing Southend would be made a city, fulfilling his dream.His predecessor, Theresa May, said every MP had “lost a friend” and said he was an example of public service and of how to be a “first-class constituency MP”.Priti Patel, the home secretary, told MPs: “It took no effort on David‘s part to conduct the business of politics in a civilised, good-humoured way, which came naturally to him. Decency ran through him like the writing in a stick of Southend rock.”And Labour leader Keir Starmer said: “Each tribute paints its own picture of a committed public servant of kindness, and a man whose decency touched everybody that he met.” More

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has revealed he received a car bomb threat, as he criticised Boris Johnson’s government for failing to crack down on social media firms over the torrent of online abuse.Sir Lindsay said he recently received a disturbing threat – sent via an “offshore” Twitter account – that a bomb would be placed under his car.The Speaker called on social media platforms to “get their act together” following the killing of Conservative MP Sir David Amess, and suggested legislation to force companies to tackle threats was long overdue.“If it was up to me and I was in charge of legislation, I would have done something,” Sir Lindsay told Times Radio in a pointed message to the government.He added: “We have got to take it seriously. The companies have got one chance … We are working very closely with them [but] some aren’t working as well as they should do, and they need to get their act together.”It comes as Conservative MP Mark Francois said it was time for “David’s Law” – suggesting that the Online Harms Bill could be toughed up “to make sure our colleague didn’t die in vain”.Francois said social media firms had to stop the “horrendous abuse” from people hiding behind anonymity. “If the social media companies don’t want them to drain the swamp, let’s compel them to do,” he said.However, home secretary Priti Patel has said any measures directed at tackling online social media abuse by anonymous trolls would have to be “proportionate” and “balanced”.Patel said on Monday that “we see far too much cruelty online” and also revealed that a review of policing for politicians is “concluding literally in the next few days”, as pledged to update MPs.It comes as former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith’s office revealed he had received a death threat in the mail at the weekend after Sir David’s killing on Friday.The senior backbench MP’s office told LBC on Monday that the threat – which including a newspaper clipping of Sir David’s death and a reference to “like you” – had been reported to the Metropolitan Police.Earlier on Monday, Labour MP Chris Bryant revealed that a man has been arrested over a threat on his life after he returned home from Qatar on Saturday.“The first message in my inbox was this death threat, pretty clear, so I notified the police and they have taken action,” he said.Elsewhere, SNP MP Joanna Cherry told the Daily Record she once required a police escort to her constituency surgery because of a credible death threat.On another occasion a constituent “behaved in such a menacing and threatening manner” that the MP and her office manager “pushed all the furniture against the door of the room in the suburban library where my surgery was being held while we waited for the police to arrive”.And Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill revealed that she once had to remove an uninvited person from her home.“I’ve had to physically remove an uninvited person from my home … that is not acceptable for anyone to have to deal with that,” the Sinn Fein politician told Stormont on Monday.It follows claims from MPs that the police response to threats made against them is “patchy” across the country and have often been ignored. More

Slovenia’s populist prime minister on Monday blamed a rise in COVID-19 infections on protests in early October that erupted into clashes between police and thousands of opponents of vaccination and coronavirus restrictions. Prime Minister Janez Jansa was responding in parliament to opposition criticism over the use of force by police against the protesters, including tear gas and water cannons. Jansa defended police actions, accusing the demonstrators of attacking the police.“Forty police officers were injured, and some rioters were slightly injured,” Jansa said of the unrest that erupted on the eve of a major European Union summit in Slovenia in early October. “It is quite clear who was inflicting violence.”The protesters came out to criticize virus containment measures and the use of COVID-19 passes, which must be used to go to work in all state-run firms. People must show that they are fully vaccinated or have recovered from the virus or must provide a recent negative PCR test About 25 protesters were detained and several were injured or hospitalized — mostly for inhaling tear gas. An AP video journalist was sprayed by a water cannon and hit in the head with an unknown object during the police intervention.Jansa rejected a possibility of spiraling violence in Slovenia as the result of police action against the protesters, saying instead that the nation faces spiraling infections.“As a result of irresponsible behavior that was certainly not caused by the police or the government” Slovenia could be forced to reintroduce a lockdown, Jansa said, according to the STA news agency. Slovenia on Monday reported 364 new confirmed cases, almost double compared to a week ago, STA said. The country of 2 million people has vaccinated about half of the population. Nearly 5,000 people have died since the start of the pandemic. Slovenia currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency. More