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The government’s coronavirus response should “almost certainly” have been different “with the benefit of hindsight”, a minister has admitted.Communities secretary Robert Jenrick also insisted that ministers took “the right decision at the right time” and “everything that we could to protect people’s lives”.It comes after the UK passed the grim milestone of 100,000 official deaths since the start of the pandemic. Britain has the worst death toll in Europe and is suffering from one of the highest rates in the world in both per capita and absolute terms. Home Secretary Priti Patel is later today due to unveil further border restrictions to keep new strains from coming to the UK – measures she has admitted she wanted to introduce at the start of the outbreak.”We took the decisions that we could at the time on the basis of the information that was available to us,” Mr Jenrick told Sky News when asked about the government’s record.”And we did everything that we could to protect people’s lives and help to weather the storm, and take the country through this very challenging period.”There is no textbook as to how to respond to a pandemic like this, but we do believe that we took the right decisions at the right time.”Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdaySpeaking on the BBC, the minister added: “I’m sure that we could or would have done some things differently with the benefit of hindsight, almost certainly.”The government has been variously criticised for failing to impose the first March lockdown quickly enough, telling people not to wear masks, lifting the first lockdown too quickly, failing to establish a working test and trace system, subsiding meals to encourage people back into restaurants, failing to impose a circuit-breaker lockdown in September, lifting the November lockdown too early, relaxing restrictions for Christmas, being slow to close schools in January, and generally communicating poorly with the public and taking chaotic last-minute decisions . Mr Jenrick also announced that Boris Johnson would set out a roadmap for reopening schools in the coming days, to “give people greater confidence and certainty”.The minister indicated a return to the tier system was on the cards, suggesting that “it’s sensible that we target restrictions on those places where the virus is most prevalent”.But Labour criticised the government for failing to impose strict measures soon enough. Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the government had “failed”.”We should have had comprehensive border controls in for the past year,” he told the BBC.
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Around 900,000 small firms – employing 2.5 million workers – are at risk of going bust if Covid-19 rescue schemes are wound up, bleak research is warning.
The businesses face “a cruel spring of bankruptcy” unless Rishi Sunak extends the hugely-expensive help due to expire in March and April, concludes the London School of Economics-led study.
The Chancellor is known to want to start repairing the country’s battered finances at the Budget on 3 March – but the research warns cutting off rescue funds too soon would be a disaster.
Backed by Gordon Brown, it concludes that business closures threaten to be more than  three times higher in the first quarter of 2021 than the equivalent period of 2019.Some 390,000 registered businesses, employing 1.9 million people are “at-risk” – and 906,000 in total, boasting 2.5 million staff or 9 per cent of all jobs in the UK, Office for National Statistics data suggests, it says.“Without further policy action, businesses face a cruel spring of bankruptcy,” said Professor John Van Reenen, of the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance.
And the former Labour prime minister added: “Governments cannot afford to be behind the curve-especially in a crisis. They have to be at least two steps ahead.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekday“But, today, the fate of thousands of small businesses hangs in the balance; millions face an uncertain future after March when the furlough is to end; youth unemployment is already at record levels.“It is time to offer new hope to what will otherwise be dying firms.”
As hopes of an early easing of the latest lockdown fade, the odds are lengthening on Mr Sunak raising taxes on 3 March – despite the predicted record £400bn budget black hole.
But the job retention scheme is due to expire at the end of April, even though 2.7m workers are still furloughed and the jobless count is forecast to reach 2.6 million later this year.
And the emergency business loan schemes, costing a whacking £68bn, will end a month earlier on the current timetable.
The report calls for the loan subsidy scheme to be extended, for the government to buy stakes in companies to save them and for a new collaboration with banks which would see them administrate government lending.
The Seed Equity Investment Scheme should be expanded to help to encourage start-ups, “not just help existing companies”.
Following the blueprint would allow the Chancellor to prevent “the liquidity crisis of 2020 becoming the solvency crisis of 2021,” Mr Brown said. More

Boris Johnson has appealed for the world to avoid restrictions to vaccine movements across borders, as an escalating row between the EU and drugs giant AstraZeneca threatens supplies of the coronavirus jab.The plea came as AZ’s chief executive Pascal Soriot confirmed that the UK would have first claim on vaccines produced by the company in Britain, and said that glitches in EU supply were the result of Brussels taking three months longer than London to seal a deal. Speaking to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Mr Soriot said the UK’s “one-dose strategy” of delaying booster jabs for 12 weeks after the initial injection was “absolutely the right way to go” with the AZ product, and would allow Britain to vaccinate 28 to 30 million people by March.Brussels has threatened to impose export controls on vaccines produced within the 27-nation bloc after the Anglo-Swedish multinational – which was due to deliver 80 million doses to the EU by the end of March – suddenly said it was cutting supplies by as much as 60 per cent.The UK’s vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi insisted that there was no risk to deliveries of tens of millions of doses of the separate Pfizer product ordered by Britain, which is produced in Belgium.But European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen insisted that Brussels “means business”, after investing €2.7bn in vaccine research and production to speed the delivery of protection against Covid-19.”Europe invested billions to help develop the world’s first Covid-19 vaccines,” Ms von der Leyen told the World Economic Forum’s virtual event in Switzerland. “And now the companies must deliver. They must honour their obligations.”Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayGerman chancellor Angela Merkel told the same event that there should be a “fair distribution” across the world, while her health minister Jens Spahn said: “This is not about EU first, it’s about Europe’s fair share.”The EU signed a deal in August for 300 million doses of the AZ drug, developed with Oxford University, with an option for 100m more. With approval expected from the European Medicines Agency on Friday, it was expected that delivery would start straight away, with some 80m doses arriving in the 27 nations by March.But last week, AZ said “reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain” meant the number of initial doses for EU member states would be reduced to as little as 31m doses. In a phone call to Mr Soriot on Monday, Ms von der Leyen insisted that the company must “deliver on the contractual arrangement”.And European health commissioner Stella Kyriakides warned that the EU “will take any action required to protect its citizens and rights”, as she announced an “export transparency mechanism” requiring companies to provide early notification for exports of vaccines to third countries.In a mark of growing mistrust, Commission spokesman Eric Mamer said: “We see that doses are being delivered elsewhere and we know that we have signed an agreement.”But Mr Soriot said that the agreement signed with the EU did not offer a contractual commitment to deliver vaccines at certain volumes, just a promise to “make our best effort” to do so.He said delays were due to low yields of vaccine from a batch at an AZ plant in Belgium, which is an issue to be expected when scaling production up to billions of doses within months.“We’ve also had teething issues like this in the UK supply chain,” Mr Soriot told La Repubblica. “But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal, so with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced.”The European Commission has not denied claims that officials asked for doses to be redirected from the UK to make up for the shortfall from the Belgium. But Mr Soriot said: “As you could imagine, the UK government said the supply coming out of the UK supply chain would go for the UK first. Basically, that’s how it is.”Mr Soriot said that European governments were getting “aggravated or emotional” about supply issues, but insisted that AZ was not diverting vaccine away from the EU to sell elsewhere. The company was making “zero profit” on the vaccine, which was sold at three or four dollars a dose everywhere in the world, with small variations depending on supply chains, he said.EU governments are coming under increasing pressure over the slow rollout of vaccines, with just 2 per cent of the bloc’s population protected so far, compared to more than 10 per cent in the UK. Delays in getting batches of doses will make it harder to meet early targets in the EU’s goal of vaccinating 70 per cent of its adults by late summer.Mr Johnson appealed for them not to retaliate by erecting barriers against vaccines reaching the UK.Insisting he had “total confidence” in the UK’s supply, the prime minister told a Downing Street press conference: “We expect and hope that our EU friends will honour all contracts.”Mr Johnson said coronavirus vaccines were “a wonderful example of multi-national co-operation” and that one of the lessons the world should learn from the pandemic was “the need to co-operate”.He added: “I don’t want to see restrictions on the supply of PPE across borders, I don’t want to see restrictions on the supply of drugs across borders, and I don’t want to see restrictions on vaccines or their ingredients across borders”.Britain has ordered 367 million doses of vaccine from seven different suppliers, with three so far cleared for use by safety regulators.Pfizer has already warned of potential disruption to supplies to the UK, and health secretary Matt Hancock admitted supplies were “tight”.NHS England chief Sir Simon Stevens told MPs: “Of course there’s a supply shortage, and we’ve done very well in this country to get the supply we have available to us, the question is how do we use it to best effect.”Mr Hancock said he had spoken to chief executives at Pfizer and AZ, telling an event hosted by the Chatham House thinktank: “I’m sure that we can work with the EU to ensure that… no blockers are put in place.”He added: “I would urge all international partners to be collaborative and work closely together. Protectionism is not the right approach in the middle of a pandemic.”Number 10 said it was not expecting vaccine supply levels to change, with the prime minister’s official spokesperson saying: “AstraZeneca are committed to delivering two million doses a week to the UK and we are not expecting any changes to that.EMA executive director Emer Cooke acknowledged concerns across the continent and said the agency was working closely with COVID-19 vaccine makers to consider different manufacturing options to boost production, such as opening new plants.The EU has signed six vaccine contracts for more than 2 billion doses, but only the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been approved for use so far.The executive director of Chatham House’s Centre for Universal Health, Robert Yates, warned that countries hoarding vaccines could make the pandemic more dangerous, as it could give the virus greater opportunity to mutate in countries without immunisation.Mr Yates said the priority should be to vaccinate the whole world “equitably and fairly” this year, with health workers and vulnerable people in developing countries coming ahead of young people in countries like the UK who are less susceptible.“Unfortunately, this isn’t happening,” he told Times Radio. “We are already seeing competition across nations.“I think the Conservative Party put out a tweet just a couple of weeks ago crowing that the UK has vaccinated more people than Italy, France, Germany and Spain combined. I think we get the politics of this, but this really is not fostering this idea of collaboration. And one worries that measures like this are seen as retaliation.”As the row intensified, AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot predicted the UK would vaccinate “maybe 28 or 30 million people” by March and will hit its target to administer jabs to the top four priority groups by mid-February.In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica he said there had also been “teething issues” in the UK supply chain, but added that the deal with Britain had been signed three months ahead of the EU’s.“So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced,” he said.He rejected the suggestion the firm was selling to the highest bidder “because we make no profit everywhere” under the agreement signed with Oxford University. More

Ministers are expected to unveil the targeted use of quarantine hotels as they tighten the UK’s borders amid fears over new strains of coronavirus.  The new rules will be set out by the home secretary, Priti Patel, in the House of Commons on Wednesday.  Keir Starmer has called for it to be made compulsory for every traveller arriving in the UK to quarantine in a hotel.  He said that tough decisions had to be taken now including “how we deal with the variants that are coming across the world and particularly how we secure our borders”.Sir Keir added: “It’s very clear that we need to have quarantine comprehensively, in hotels, for everybody coming into the country, we need much stronger defences at our borders. We were one of the slowest countries to take any measures on our borders.”  The new restrictions are expected to affect British travellers coming from a number of countries where new variants of the disease have been identified, such as South Africa.  Travellers who are not UK residents are already banned from making the journey to Britain from those countries.  Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayIt is thought the scheme could be expanded if necessary.  Some minsters are fearful more deadly strains could emerge and spread to the UK before they are identified.  Ireland has announced that all travellers coming into the country will be subject to mandatory quarantine, either at home or in a hotel.  Scotland’s deputy first minister, John Swinney, has pledged that the Scottish government will go “at least as far” as its Westminster counterparts on travel restrictions.Mr Swinney also called for more support for the aviation industry, which will be further hit by the new rules.  The travel industry itself has warned of any tightening of the border would have a devastating effect on business.  The Airport Operators Association and Airlines UK said that introducing tougher rules would be “catastrophic”, and that the UK already had “some of the highest levels of restrictions in the world”.Industry body the World Travel and Tourism Council has estimated that hotel quarantines could cost the UK economy nearly £548m per day, because of lost journeys.  But vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi has warned the country must be “very careful” as new strains emerge.  Labour’s shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said a limited approach would be “half-baked” and leave “gaping holes in our nation’s defences against different strains of the virus emerging around the world”.   More

Labour has been accused of undermining the “ancient and fundamental right” of jury trial with proposals to cut the number of jurors to combat a growing backlog of court cases.David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, called for the government to temporarily allow panels of seven people, rather than the current 12, to decide innocence or guilt in trials.Mr Lammy said thousands and victims were waiting too long for justice, blaming “Conservative incompetence”, court closures and cuts to sitting days of worsening the backlog.“Victims of rape, murder, domestic abuse, robbery and assault are facing delays of up to four years because of the government’s failure to act,” he added.   “Justice cannot be delayed any further. Labour is calling on the government to tackle the backlog by speeding up the roll-out of Nightingale courts and temporarily introducing wartime juries of seven until the pandemic is over.”Supporters argue that the move, which was previously taken during the Second World War, would allow more trials to be heard in socially-distanced conditions.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayCrown courts were initially closed in March, and since they have reopened the requirement for trials to be spread across three courtrooms for safety has slowed the number that can be heard.Its president, David Greene, said: “We recognise this is a crisis, but before we agree to anything like reducing jury sizes, we would need to understand how much of a contribution it would actually make towards solving the problems facing the criminal justice system.”James Mulholland QC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, said reducing jury numbers would be a “convenient way to avoid the proper solution” of investing in more courtrooms.“We must retain faith in the processes that have made our criminal justice system one of the fairest in the world,” he added.
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What are to make of the “vaccine war” between Britain and the European Union?The underlying problem would seem to be a lack of trust, entirely comprehensible given the history of Brexit. Chauvinism and suspicion seem to be driving public pronouncements and policy on vaccine procurement. A ridiculous race has been set up, in the minds of some, between the UK and EU to see who can vaccinate their populations fastest. Britain has reached 10 per cent, continental Europe 2 per cent. This, absurdly, has been used to justify Brexit, leaving aside Britain’s grim record on deaths from Covid. If this cross-Channel competition has the effect of spurring on efforts it might have something to be said for it, but it seems unlikely given that supply is a constraint everywhere. What’s more, the coronavirus does not respect national borders; if it is raging in France it will not remain there. Tempers have flared, as with previous skirmishes over the closures of borders, supermarket deliveries to Northern Ireland, fish (inevitably) and a lorry driver who was upset to find his ham sandwich impounded at the Hook of Holland (“Welcome to the Brexit, sir”).   More

Foreign secretary Dominic Raab answers questions from MPsBritain’s port chiefs have warned Boris Johnson’s government that new border infrastructure needed to manage post-Brexit bureaucracy is still not up to scratch because of inadequate funding.It comes as the leading financial analysts at Moody’s said the UK economy is set to become “significantly smaller” because of the Brexit trade deal – pointing to “significant negative consequences” ahead because of all the new barriers to trade.Meanwhile, Conservative MP David Jones said it was “childish and spiteful” for the EU to threaten to tighten rules on exports of Covid vaccines produced in the bloc. It follows a row with the UK-based firm AstraZeneca over a slowdown in vaccine supplies.Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayShow latest update
1611672678Hancock hits out at EU Covid vaccine threatAnother minister has hit out at the EU over its threat to impose controls on the export of coronavirus vaccines, after Nadhim Zahawi said the move would be “the wrong way to go”.Health secretary Matt Hancock said: “Protectionism is not the right approach in a pandemic”.
He also said he had spoken to manufacturers Astrazeneca and Pfizer and added: “I’m confident of the supply of vaccines into the UK”.Liam James26 January 2021 14:511611671538Conservative Party ‘illegally collected ethnicity data on 10 million voters’Before the 2019 general election the Conservatives purchased data which estimated a person’s country of origin, ethnic origin and religion based on their first and last name and was applied to to records of 10 million voters.Elizabeth Denham, the Information Commissioner, has now told MPs this data was “illegal to collect” and was deleted after her office intervened.Our Whitehall Editor Kate Devlin has more:Liam James26 January 2021 14:321611670458Children prescribed medical cannabis given reprieve after Brexit import blockMore than 40 children with severe epilepsy whose imports of medical cannabis had been halted due to Brexit will be able to access their prescriptions again, for the next six months at least.The Department of Health and Social Care said the Dutch government has confirmed it will allow the continued supply of Bedrocan oil from the Netherlands to existing UK patients until 1 July this year.A letter from the government sent to Hannah Deacon, whose nine-year-old son Alfie uses the oil to prevent seizures, said a “permanent solution” to the situation is being sought.Ms Deacon welcomed the news then called upon the government to “end the suffering of the families forced to raise huge sums of money for their private prescriptions,” amid reports some families are having to spend up to £2,500 a month to cover costs of prescriptions.Liam James26 January 2021 14:141611669198Boris Johnson hosting press conference laterThe prime minister will lead a Downing Street press conference at 5pm alongside Professor Chris Whitty and NHS England boss Sir Simon Stevens, No 10 has announced.Liam James26 January 2021 13:531611667938Tory MP warns Rishi Sunak of ‘looming bloodbath’ over tenant evictionsMel Stride, chair of the Treasury Select Committee and Tory MP, asked the chancellor about the “acute danger” facing many private renters, warning: “There’s a looming bloodbath for many businesses at the end of March when the moratorium on commercial landlords taking action against tenants in arrears comes to an end.”Does my right honourable friend recognise this acute danger and what action might my right honourable friend consider taking to avoid it?”
The chancellor referred Ms Stride to the work of housing secretary Robert Jenrick in his answer, who he said had been working to “encourage good and constructive dialogue between landlords and tenants”.No word on support for tenants if such dialogue were to break down. Plenty of anxiety among renters at the moment, Shelter has warned almost 445,000 adults who rent privately in England have either fallen into rent arrears or received some kind of eviction notice from their landlord or letting agent in the past month. Our Money Editor Kate Hughes has more on this:Liam James26 January 2021 13:321611666856‘Where are the green gilts?’Labour’s Bridget Phillipson, the shadow treasury minister, asked Rishi Sunak why the government has not yet launched its promised “green gilts”, or government bonds which will promote environmentally-friendly investment.
She asked: “Green gilts will be a vital part of the transition to a clean economy. Last year, the chancellor promised to launch the first ones this year. Can he tell us when and why not yet?”Mr Sunak replied that the government was doing the “technical work” behind the launch of the green bonds, adding he hopes to provide an update at budget. More

Issuing ‘freedom passports’ to people who have been vaccinated would risk creating “a two-tier society”, the information Commissioner has warned.
Elizabeth Denham told MPs of her “concerns” about any such initiative – after ministers made conflicting statements about whether they could be introduced.
“Some of the issues are beyond data protection, they touch on human rights, they touch on whether or not we’re going to create a two-tier society based on whether you have a jab in the arm,” she warned.
“And concerns over whether or not this is identity [cards] by the back door.”
There were suggestions the information could be added to the contact tracing app, which millions of people have downloaded, but other ministers have dismissed the idea.Speaking to the Commons digital committee, Ms Denham said she would demand to know “is it necessary, does it work, does it do what it says on the tin, is it proportionate and is there transparency”.
Inside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayInside Politics newsletterThe latest news on Brexit, politics and beyond direct to your inbox every weekdayShe added: “For a long time, we have carried vaccination certificates when we go on foreign travel, to show that you’ve had your typhoid vaccination for example, and that’s a piece of paper.
“If we start talking about immunity passports that are digital – are tacked onto the contact-tracing application – then I think those are real, real questions for policy makers.”The Commissioner acknowledged “vaccine passports of some sort would be useful”, but warned: “People have to trust the government when they bring in these initiatives.
“And make sure, at the end of the day, that their civil liberties, human rights, data protection, are protected.”
Ms Denham also warned of the impact on workers if companies pursued a “no jab, no job” policy, suggesting employment legislation might need to be strengthened.She also cautioned against against any watering down of EU data protection rules, arguing any government would suffer damage to its “reputation” if it tried.The Brexit trade agreement removed the immediate threat of businesses losing the ability to share data with the EU, creating a six-month grace period before an “adequacy decision” must be granted.
There have been fears that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be watered down – threatening that go-ahead – and Ms Denham strongly defended it.  “The advantage of the GDPR approach is that other countries around the world are using the GDPR as a model to reform their law,” she told MPs.
Arguing the GDPR wrongly “gets a bad rap from people who say it’s just about the paperwork of privacy”, Ms Denham told MPs: “It’s more important to the reputation of governments and businesses than it’s ever been.” More