Markus Andrews

Boris Johnson’s government has denied claims that the crucial system for assessing Covid travel rules has been left “rudderless” after the head of the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) left her post.The development comes as the government faced accusations the system for international travel is in “chaos” after proposals for a new amber watchlist category were dropped.It emerged on Tuesday that Dr Clare Gardiner has left her role as director general of the JBC – the crucial data body which advises ministers on restrictions – without any successor in place.Education minister Gillian Keegan confirmed that Dr Gardiner had left her role as JBC chief following reports that her details were removed from the government website in mid-June.Ms Keegan rejected the idea the JBC had been left rudderless by Dr Gardiner’s departure because “there’s still a team of experts” who are “looking at the data and giving their analysis based on that”.Asked on LBC to confirm if Dr Gardiner has resigned, Ms Keegan said “yes I believe that she has” – before saying the JBC would be looking for a new leader.She added: “I mean I don’t have any responsibility for that area, but you know, all of these things – there is a group of experts who are basically there that are looking at data, analysing data and then giving advice to the government, and so I guess they will be looking for a new chair.”Labour said it was “reckless” to have the crucial advisory body without a leader at a crucial time for deciding on travel rules. The Lib Dems, meanwhile, urged for the government to “step in and appoint a head to the currently rudderless Joint Biosecurity Centre”.Liz Kendall, shadow health minister, said: “This critical post is vacant at a time when the JBC advice is more important than ever. The government has left this crucial body without a captain as we continue to sail through a storm.”Sarah Olney, transport spokeswoman for the Lib Dems, said: “Travel chaos is running rife at the moment and the government must get a grip … It is shameful that such a vital institution has been without leadership on the government’s watch.”The JBC was heavily criticised after the government decided to act on its concerns about the prevalence of the Beta variant in France and move the country into specially created “amber-plus” category – which still required arrivals to quarantine for 10 days.A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said Dr Gardiner had “returned as planned to a role in national security”.“The JBC continues to operate routinely under robust interim arrangements,” the spokesperson said. “A formal open competitive recruitment process has concluded and the new DG [director general] will be announced imminently.”The government has ditched a proposal to introduce a new, amber watchlist category to the traffic light system – with Boris Johnson making clear he wanted the rules to remain as “simple as possible”.Following a backlash by Tory backbenchers, opposition MPs and the travel industry, government sources confirmed there would be no amber watchlist. Some members of cabinet are also believed to have shared their alarm at the idea of adding complexity to the rules.Although ministers won’t decide on changes to the travel lists until Thursday, Labour urged ministers on Tuesday to come forward to confirm the idea of an amber watchlist was dead.“What we need to see by the end of the day is senior government ministers … coming out and being crystal clear with the country about what the travel arrangements are,” said Labour frontbencher Wes Streeting.Travel expert Paul Charles, director of The PC Agency consultancy, said he expected further changes to the rules – claiming “high level” sources had told him the “amber plus” and “green watchlist” categories would also be dropped.Some Tory MPs have joined travel industry bosses in calling for the amber category to be scrapped altogether. More than 300 travel firms have written to Mr Johnson to say there should only be a red category, advising passengers whether or not a country is safe for travel. More

Labour MP David Lammy has criticised the lack of a “Black English” option in this year’s census, after discovering respondents are given the option of choosing “White English” as their ethnic group.The shadow justice secretary questioned the absence of the category, having accused census chiefs at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) of getting into a “muddle” over ethnicity options.Mr Lammy pointed out that there was a “White English” category – as well as a “Black Welsh” and “Asian Welsh” options available for those living in Wales.“Why can’t I describe myself or my children as English on our census form? Black British yes, English no. You can be White English but you can’t be Black English,” the MP told the Radio Times.The ONS claimed the evidence did not “support” a change in the census to include a Black English option after carrying out a review on ethnicity questions.A spokeswoman for the ONS said: “After testing different options in England and Wales, we recommended a change in the Welsh questionnaire to include Black Welsh and Asian Welsh, alongside Black British and Asian British.”She added: “The evidence did not support a change to include Black English in England.”Mr Lammy had previously questioned the ability of the census to accurately capture the UK’s multicultural society, asking on Twitter: “Why can’t I be both Black Caribbean & English when I was born in London?“Why can’t my kids be both mixed Black & White and English (their mother was born in Northampton)? Since when do you need to be White to be English?”Meanwhile, Mr Lammy used his Radio Times interview to condemn home secretary Priti Patel for failing to back the England team over their decision to take the knee.Ms Patel refused to condemn spectators who booed England footballers over their anti-racism stance and desmissed the players’ protest as “gesture politics”.“Let’s remember taking the knee is an act of prayer effectively – that’s why you take the knee as Martin Luther King did – to pray for a better future for black people in which they are no longer experiencing the racism they still are,” Mr Lammy said.“To describe that as gesture politics and to condone booing was an extraordinary intervention by the home secretary.”Asked if he felt optimistic about the future of the UK, the Labour MP replied: “I’m afraid I don’t, no” – citing the Windrush scandal and the failures of the Grenfell Tower fire. More

Boris Johnson is today facing pressure from Tory MPs and the travel industry to ditch the Government’s traffic light system.On Monday plans for an “amber watchlist“ were abandoned and the prime minister pledged to keep travel rules as simple as possible amid a review into the system on Thursday.Ministers had been considering new category for nations at risk of being moved into the red group, but faced a backlash from livid Tory MPs and travel bosses who feared that top holiday destinations such as Spain could be moved onto the list.Despite the plans now being shelved, travel bosses have now moved swiftly to demand that the government’s traffic light system is scrapped altogether, as reported by the Daily Mail.More than 300 travel firms have written to Mr Johnson to say that there should only be a red category, and not green and amber sections. The red category would be for countries who have very high levels of Covid infections or new variants.The letter states: “We urge ministers to simplify travel urgently so that at least the key travel month of August can be salvaged.“The traffic light system should be either abandoned or made much easier, along the lines of the American system.“There would continue to be some red countries which would be out of bounds but the majority of destinations would be accessible to the fully jabbed.“This easy-to-understand policy would help the UK travel sector recover, build confidence quickly among consumers and still protect our country’s health needs with pre-departure testing.“We call on the Prime Minister to act swiftly so as to save tens of thousands of jobs and provide clarity for consumers hoping to travel to see loved ones.”The letter, coordinated by the Save Our Summer group, argues for a more simplified travel system where people who are double-jabbed can travel to any countries that will allow them to enter. Tory MP Henry Smith, whose Crawley constituency includes Gatwick Airport, backed to calls for an easier system of travel.He told the Daily Mail: “I’m in favour of anything that is simplified and more easy to understand.“The traffic light system could have provided that but shortly after it was announced there were all sorts of caveats.”New rules allowing fully-vaccinated passengers from the US and amber-list European countries to avoid self-isolation on arrival in the UK came into force on Monday.The relaxation of rules allows passengers who have been double-jabbed with a vaccine approved by regulators in the US, the EU or Switzerland to avoid 10 days in self-isolation. More

The government is keen for British businesses to use the summer to “ramp up” efforts to get staff back into the office, an education minister has said.It comes as chancellor Rishi Sunak encouraged young people to return to the office, suggesting that it was “really beneficial” to their careers to be working alongside colleagues.Gillian Keegan, minister for skills and apprenticeships, echoed those remarks – saying it was important for young people to “build that social capital, to learn from others, to be part of that working environment in the flesh”.The minister also said firms in the UK should use the next few months to encourage employees of all ages to return, as the Covid crisis begins to ease.Ms Keegan told LBC on Tuesday: “There was a time in the pandemic where we said, ‘Work from home’. We’re now saying, ‘That time has gone, it’s safe to go back to the office – use the summer to ramp up that’.Since 19 July, the government is no longer instructing people to work from home in England, and guidance published online says it “expects and recommends a gradual return over the summer”.In an interview with LinkedIn on Monday, Mr Sunak said it was “really beneficial” to be in an office at the start of his career. The chancellor said he met young people starting out in finance – an industry he had also worked in – during his recent trip to Scotland.“I was telling them the mentors that I found when I first started my job, I still talk to and they have been helpful to me all through my career even after we have gone in different ways,” the chancellor said.“I doubt I would have had those strong relationships if I was doing my summer internship or my first bit of my career over Teams and Zoom. And that’s why I think for young people in particular being able to physically be in an office is valuable.”Mr Sunak said the government would “expect and recommend” a gradual return to office working this summer “in keeping with everything else that we are doing, it’s been gradual, it’s cautious, it’s careful”.The chancellor added: So there will be a gradual return back to the offices and I think that is what broadly will happen.”Ms Keegan denied any government hypocrisy over the push to get people back into the office – after she told Times Radio that only around one in four staff in her own department had returned to work.“In the DfE, I’d say 20 per cent to 25 per cent going in, on any one day … probably 25 per cent,” she said. “We [ministers] have been there the whole time, as have many civil servants who support us.”She added: “We’ve led by example, and I think more and more people will [return to the office]. We’ve said, ‘Use the summer to get people back, get people comfortable coming back’.”Lawyers have told The Independent they expect a wave of legal action against UK companies over attempts to make sure staff are double-vaccinated against Covid, amid growing fears some will introduce “no jab, no job” policies in the workplace.“We’re definitely going to see a lot of employment tribunals on this,” said Elissa Thursfield, head of employment lawyer and a director at Gamlins Law – predicting a wave of vaccine-related discrimination claims in the months ahead. More

Boris Johnson’s climate spokesperson Allegra Stratton has revealed that she prefers to drive her diesel Volkswagen Golf over an electric car.The prime minister’s former press secretary claimed she is put off by how long it takes to recharge an electric car before long journeys.Ms Stratton said she needed a car that doesn’t need to be charged when she makes long journeys up to 250 miles away from her home in north London to visit elderly relatives in Scotland, Gloucestershire, north Wales, and the Lake District with her two young children.Instead, she drives an old diesel-fuelled car that she bought “third-hand” – she said in an interview with Times Radio.When asked why she would not drive an electric vehicle, she said: “I don’t fancy it just yet.”She added that driving an electric car would be a more attractive idea if “the stop times for recharging improve so much that it’s half an hour.”Edmund King, president of the AA, said the average electric vehicle has a range of more than 200 miles without the need for recharging. He told The Times: “Even on a rare journey of over 200 miles, the driver should stop to take a break anyway for road safety reasons, so why not combine it with a rapid charge that takes just 20 minutes to go from a quarter charge to over 80 per cent?”Mr King said that “now is the right time to go electric” as Londoners with electric cars do not have to pay the capital’s congestion charge, and vehicles that run only on electric are exempt from car tax across the UK.Sales of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the UK from 2030. Some plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and some full hybrids still able to be sold up until 2035. More

Given that they are one of the few places where MPs and peers from different parties and with radically different philosophies can learn to work together, it seems a bit of a shame that the system of All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) is the latest institution to be brushed with the taint of sleaze. The Commons standards committee is to investigate this obscure, under-reported corner of political life. Concerns have arisen because the members of some groups may have a conflict of interest, or the appearance of a conflict, due to their involvement with companies or organisations closely linked to a relevant APPG’s remit. There may also be questions about who funds the APPGs’ work, research and secretarial support, and who pays for travel and hospitality. In short, there is a suspicion that the groups are being “lobbied” in some insidious way.The APPGs are a curious thing. Unlike select committees or those scrutinising bills, they have no formal constitutional role. They are simply a group of MPs and peers (normally backbenchers) clubbing together because they have some particular interest – a charitable cause, say – or because they have constituency, family or sentimental links to a particular part of the world, or a shared area of expertise. They organise events and a little publicity, and sometimes issue reports on areas of concern. Thus in recent weeks, the APPG on Democracy and Human Rights in the Gulf has reported that the government is funding groups that whitewash human rights abuses in the Gulf states; the APPG on the Future of Aviation has expressed concern about the traffic-light system of Covid travel controls; the APPG on Beauty, Aesthetics and Wellbeing has recommended better screening for people seeking Botox and filler treatments; and the APPG on Zimbabwe has appealed to the Home Office to stop deportations to the country. There’s an APPG for almost everything, in fact, and not all causes are entirely political, or indeed obvious candidates. To take a few at random, there are groups for Afghanistan, Cameroon, San Marino, Slovenia, Iceland, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, 22q11 syndrome, Alevis, British Sikhs, coronavirus, Crossrail, the death penalty, electoral reform, gasworks redevelopment, jazz appreciation, Lancashire, pigeon racing, running, vaping, wrestling, and youth employment. As can be guessed from the numbers, running into the hundreds, they have expanded greatly over the years for some reason. The old cliche was that the members sometimes joined so that they could take part in important on-the-ground fact-finding missions to places such as Bermuda, Thailand or the Maldives (all have APPGs) or enjoy the generous hospitality that might be expected to follow from a close interest in scotch whisky, wines of Great Britain, or hospitality and tourism (again, all have APPGs), but the current inquiry by the standards committee suggests that something rather more serious than the occasional complimentary bottle of single malt may be at stake. At any rate, it would indeed be a shame if the genuinely valuable work of many of the groups’ MPs and peers, toiling for fine causes and with no personal reward, were harmed by some of their more mercenary colleagues and the heavy intrusion of unaccountable special interests. More

Boris Johnson is facing an anxious summer recess with Tory rebellions brewing on a raft of issues, and collapsing personal support among Conservative party members.Despite a vast Commons majority the prime minister is juggling showdowns with his MPs on issues including planning reforms, Universal Credit cuts, vaccine passports and cuts to overseas aid.It comes after Mr Johnson’s personal rating among members of his own party took a nosedive, down 36 per cent to just 3 percent, according to a straw poll by the ConservativeHome website.Of the issue confronting Mr Johnson, it is his planning reforms that are alienating the most Tory MPs – and where the government seems most likely to make further U-turns.The prime minister sees the changes, which would give many developments automatic planning permission in principle, as key to meeting a target of building 300,000 homes.But faced with huge internal opposition, Downing Street signalled at least a partial climbdown on the issue at the first full week of recess kicked off, with a government source telling the Daily Mail newspaper: “We’ll listen and we’ll move.”The source suggested the government would “take some of the edges off that are upsetting people,” though provided no details.Dozens of Conservative MPs have voices opposition to the changes, with former prime minister Theresa May a major focal point of the rebellion. Government cuts to overseas aid are another area the prime minister has faced opposition from inside his own party.The government was openly opposed by 25 Tories in a vote last month, cutting Mr Johnson’s majority to just 35 – albeit nowhere near a defat.And back at home, the decision to push ahead with removing a £20 uplift from Universal Credit payments has also attracted the ire of some Tory backbenchers, who fear their constituents will not thank them for plunging them into poverty. Brexiteer Steve Baker, an MP for Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, warned at “intolerable” levels of hunger and poverty that would be made worse by the cut – levels the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has so far refused to formally quantify, citing practical difficulties related to the pandemic. The Guardian reported that Mr Banker has joined other Tories, including six former work and pensions secretaries in opposing the cut: Sir Iain Duncan Smith; Damian Green; Esther McVey; Stephen Crabb; David Gauke; and Amber Rudd have all set themselves against it.There is said to be “no appetite” from Rishi Sunak’s Treasury to continue the cut, however.On the issue of vaccine passports, too, Mr Johnson faces a major rebellion. The government appears to be hurtling towards a confrontation with backbenchers – and on this issue opposition could be more significant than in other instances of Covid regulations.On the one hand, as many as 40 Tory MPs have signed a pledge organised by campaign group Big Brother Watch saying they will vote against “Covid status certification to deny individuals access to general services, businesses or jobs”.But on the other, the government has hinted that vaccine passports could be required for more events from September – partly as a means to encourage uptake among younger people. Recent surveys have suggested that Labour is narrowing the gap with the prime minister’s party in national opinion polls, a development which is likely to concentrate minds in the Conservative party and raise more talk of a leadership change. More

Tens of thousands of people will no longer be required to self-isolate if they come into contact with someone who has tested positive for coronavirus following major changes to the NHS Covid-19 app, the government has announced.From Monday, the app will only “ping” a person’s close contacts from the two days prior to a positive test, instead of the current five days.The move comes following sustained pressure on the government to act after almost 700,000 alerts were sent by the app to users in England and Wales for the week to July 21, a record since it was launched, prompting staffing issues across multiple industries nationwide.Labour meanwhile has accused the government of “shambolic” mixed messaging and suggested the tweaks to the app were a sign that the government was abandoning its attempts to bring down infection rates.Liz Kendall, Labour’s shadow health and social care minister, said: “The government has allowed infections to spiral out of control, leaving hundreds of thousands of people forced to self-isolate every day, their response is not to drive down infections but instead quietly change the app that helps to keep us safe.“This is yet another Covid U-turn from ministers at a time when the public need clarity and certainty – not chaos and mixed messages. It’s shambolic and they must get a grip.”In recent weeks Britain has seen trains cancelled, food distribution interrupted, and pubs closed as record numbers of people were told to stay at home following a surge in cases around the ending of legal Covid restrictions.There have also been concerns, fuelling by polling evidence, that people have been uninstalling the app en masse to prevent it from telling them to self-isolate.The Department of Health claimed in the announcement on Monday that the change to the cut-off point, which will see fewer people pinged, did not amount to a change to “the sensitivity of the app”.“We want to reduce the disruption that self-isolation can cause for people and businesses, while ensuring we’re protecting those most at risk from this virus. This update to the app will help ensure that we are striking the right balance,” said health secretary Sajid Javid.“It’s so important that people isolate when asked to do so in order to stop the spread of the virus and protect their communities.”The department confirmed that the risk thresholds for deciding whether someone is a close contact in the two-day period still contact traced will remain unchanged.But now nobody who comes into contact with a person three, four or five days before they test positive will count as a close contact for the purposes of the app, even if they come into close contact with the infected person.Unlike people contacted through the main NHS test and trace service, those pinged by the app are not legally obliged to self-isolate – though the government says it is crucial for them to do so.The government has however introduced exemptions for workers in sectors like food distribution, medicine, and the power grid. People in named jobs can continue to go to work, though they are being told to self-isolate at other times.”The NHS Covid-19 app is a really practical example of how technology can be used to fight the biggest challenges we face in protecting and improving our health,” said Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency.”The app is the simplest, easiest and fastest way to find out whether you have been exposed to the virus, and it has saved thousands of lives over the course of this pandemic.”I strongly encourage everyone, even those fully vaccinated, to continue using the app.”It is a lifesaving tool that helps us to stay safe and to protect those closest to us as we return to a more familiar way of life.” More