Markus Andrews

The Conservative Party acted illegally by collecting ethnicity data on millions of people, the Information Commissioner has told MPs.  Elizabeth Denham said the information was deleted after her office intervened.  But she told members of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee: “They did not have the legal basis to collect it … it was illegal to collect.”  Before the 2019 general election the party purchased data which estimated a person’s county of origin, ethnic origin and religion based on their first and last name.  This was applied to the records of 10 million voters.  Ms Denham said that after the release of her office’s findings last November the data was deleted.  If it had not been her office would have ordered it be destroyed, she added.  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 weekdayJim Killock, executive director of campaigning organisation Open Rights Group, said: “The Conservative Party’s racial profiling of voters was illegal. “Elizabeth Denham finally confirmed the unlawful nature of this profiling by the Conservative Party under pressure from MP’s on the DCMS committee.“Yet the ICO still has not explained what parties can and cannot do. Mass profiling of voters continues, even if this data has been removed. The ICO needs to act stop unlawful profiling practices. That’s their job.”   More

There is no risk to deliveries of the Pfizer vaccine, a minister is insisting, despite the EU threat to impose controls over a separate row with UK-based AstraZeneca.Nadhim Zahawi sought to play down growing fears of “vaccine nationalism” – saying he was “confident” that tens of millions of doses of Pfizer jabs ordered from Belgium will arrive.
Brussels announced plans for export controls after AstraZeneca – which was due to deliver 80 million doses to the EU by the end of March – suddenly said it was cutting supplies to as low as 30 million.But, asked whether the EU could prevent Pfizer vials leaving its borders, Mr Zahawi, the vaccines minister, said: “No, I’m confident that the Pfizer vaccine will be delivered.“Pfizer have made sure that they have always delivered for us, they will continue to do so,” he told Sky News.“We have got 367 million vaccines that we have ordered from seven different suppliers, so I’m confident we will meet our target and continue to vaccinate the whole of the adult population by the autumn.”
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 weekdayHowever, Brussels’ row with AstraZeneca could make supplies bumpier, if it follows through on the threat of new controls amid public anger at the pace of immunisation programmes in the EU.
Companies would have to provide “early notification” of exports of all jabs manufactured in the bloc in an attempt to prevent shortfalls.
Pfizer has already warned of potential disruption to supplies to the UK. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, admitted supplies were “tight” – although the UK has refused to release any distribution figures.On Monday, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission President, rang the UK pharmaceutical giant’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, to say AstraZeneca must “deliver on the contractual arrangement”.
“She reminded Mr Soriot that the EU has invested significant amounts in the company upfront, precisely to ensure production is ramped up,” a Commission spokesperson said.
More than 10 per cent of Britons have been given a jab, while the EU has vaccinated only 2 per cent of its population. Brussels suspects that Britain secured better contracts.Ahead of the UK reaching the grim total of 100,000 people dying within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test, Mr Zahawi said he would not “speculate” on the reasons for such a disastrous record.
He also said it was “too early” for people to think about foreign summer holidays, telling  BBC Breakfast: “I think the right thing to do now is to continue with our vaccination drive.”He confirmed that a decision on quarantining travellers – including returning Britons – at hotels will be discussed by a Cabinet committee this evening, although a decision may not be announced on Tuesday.
“As we vaccinate more of the adult population, if there are new variants like the South African or the Brazilian variants, we need to be very careful,” he said. More

The mayor said this was “simply not good enough” as he called for the government to ensure all students out of school have access to a device.Schools moved online in early January to all pupils except vulnerable and key worker children due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Speaking about uncertainty over when all children will be allowed back to school, the Greater Manchester mayor said: “If we can’t give schools a start date, they have to put in place the equipment to get kids online.”“It is just not good enough to do this half-hearted job they have done so far.”Mr Burnham said: “I understand why you can’t set a date, but for goodness sake, you have to put in place an arrangement that allows every child to learn.”We estimate that in Greater Manchester there are around 20,000 young people who are out of school and do not have online access and that simply isn’t good enough.”The government laptop scheme – which has faced criticism over delays and device quality – is providing devices for disadvantaged children in certain year groups who do not have access to a device at home and whose face-to-face education has been disrupted. The government has committed to giving 1.3 million laptops and tablets to schools to support pupils in need, with around 800,000 of these delivered by mid-January.After the total figure pledged rose by 300,000 earlier this month, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said it was “pretty poor that nearly a year after this crisis began we are only now inching up to the number of devices that are needed”.According to estimates from Ofcom, between 1.14 million and 1.78 million children in the UK (9%) do not have home access to a laptop, desktop or tablet, and that more than 880,000 children live in a household with only a mobile internet connection.In the wake of lockdown and the majority of pupils moving to remote learning, tech companies have been urged to do more to support disadvantaged families who lack access to a reliable internet connection and network operators moved to offer free mobile data to those who need it.A government spokesperson said: “We are fully committed to reopening schools as soon as the public health picture allows, and right through the pandemic have taken every step to ensure schools stayed open as long as they could.“We will set out plans for schools, parents and pupils as soon as possible, providing as much notice as we can.” More

Numbers of coronavirus patients in intensive care and on ventilation have reached their highest of the pandemic so far, as health secretary Matt Hancock warned the NHS is “stretched to the limit”.With more than one in nine of the adult population – some 6.6m people – now having received vaccinations against Covid-19, Mr Hancock said that “the end is in sight” for the UK.But he refused to give any timetable for lifting lockdown restrictions, insisting that ministers must wait to see how infection and death rates develop in response to the vaccination campaign and whether virulent new variants of the virus spread in the UK.And England’s deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries warned: “We are not out of this by a very long way.”Expectations are high that ministers will on Tuesday step up the UK’s defences against new variants arriving from abroad by introducing mandatory quarantine in airport hotels for all new arrivals in the country.Hotel chains say they are expecting incoming travellers to be told to self-isolate in rooms under security, with regular meals delivered, for 10 days at a cost of £1,500 or more. Andrew Denton of Best Western said conversations with government and NHS officials had been accelerating over the past fortnight, adding: “We are expecting an announcement imminently and hopefully a green light so we can start helping.”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 weekdayMr Johnson confirmed the hotel scheme was being “actively looked at”, adding: “We have to realise there is at least the theoretical risk of a new variant that is a vaccine-busting variant coming in, we’ve got to be able to keep that under control.”But Downing Street sources would say only that the government’s Covid Operations (CO) committee will “consider options”, which are also thought to include GPS tracking of arrivals or targeted travel bans on countries where dangerous new strains are detected.Mr Hancock signalled his support for quarantine hotels – an idea which chancellor Rishi Sunak is also known to be sympathetic towards – telling a press conference at N6 10 that it was “reasonable to take a precautionary principle” on the threat of importing new variants from abroad.Ministers will be summoned to the Commons on Tuesday to answer urgent questions from Labour both on the handling of borders and the return of all pupils to schools,  which are currently taking only vulnerable youngsters and the children of key workers.Boris Johnson is under intense pressure from his own backbenchers to name an early date for classrooms to reopen in England. Headteachers have been promised two weeks’ notice, meaning that a decision to reopen after spring half-term on 22 February would have to be taken by the end of next week. Education secretary Gavin Williamson is expected to confirm this week that this timetable will not be possible.Speaking during a visit to a vaccination centre in north London, the prime minister said parents “mustn’t assume” that school doors will remain closed until Easter.But Downing Street dampened down hopes for an imminent announcement. A spokesperson softened the significance of Mr Johnson’s comment that ministers will consider the “potential” for lockdown relaxations at a review scheduled for 15 February.And the prime minister himself said any easing would be done cautiously, saying: “I don’t think anybody would want to see the restrictions lifted so quickly while the rate of infection is still very high so as to lead to another great spread of infection.“We want to see schools back as fast as possible, [but] we want to do that in a way that is consistent with fighting the epidemic and keeping the infection rate down.”Despite falling numbers of positive tests for coronavirus, Mr Hancock said that numbers in hospital stand at around 37,000 – almost twice as many as at the first-wave peak of 19,000 in April last year– with a record 4,076 people on ventilators.Health staff on Covid wards are “flat out and stretched to the limit”, said Mr Hancock saying it was “a duty on all of us” to support them by continuing to observe lockdown rules as long as it is necessary to keep a lid on the disease.Public Health England’s Susan Hopkins said that intensive care units have more Covid patients than ever before, adding that death and hospitalisation rates would have to be “much lower” before experts could advise on a move back to regionalised tiers.Latest figures showed 592 deaths from Covid reported on Monday, bringing the official total to 98,531 across the UK, with a further 22,195 positive cases confirmed by labs.Some 6,573,570 people in the UK have received a first dose of the vaccine – a rise of 220,249 on the previous day’s figures – with jabs administered at a rate of 250 a minute over the past week.Mr Hancock said he was “delighted” at the speed of vaccination of top-priority groups, which has already seen 78.7 per cent of over-80s receive their first jab and only “very, very low” proportions refusing to be immunised.But he said the public must remain “super-careful” about social distancing and hygiene rules.“We’ve all frankly sacrificed too much, and it’s so important that we protect lives,” he said.“We’re making progress with the vaccine. The end is in sight. We cannot put that progress at risk.“There’s a promise of better days that lie ahead. We have to hold our nerve and persevere through this difficult winter. “So it’s incumbent on us all, wherever possible, to stay home, protect the NHS and save lives.”Any relaxation of lockdown will be driven by conditions not timetables, with ministers responding to changes in death and hospitalisation rates, the emergence of new variants and the success of the vaccination programme, he said.Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt urged ministers to pay the salaries of people told to self-isolate after coming into contact with positive cases, and to use GPS tracking technology and on-the-ground local authority teams to ensure that they stay at home.The failure of compliance with self-isolation was “the biggest flaw in our current strategy”, said the Commons Health Committee chair. More

Today’s daily politics briefingCampaigners have called on Boris Johnson’s government to ditch the planned ‘Festival of Brexit’ and redirect the money to Covid recovery efforts. Lib Dem MP Jamie Stone said it was “sick” to spend £120m on the cultural celebration during a public health crisis.It comes as former prime minister Gordon Brown warned Mr Johnson that the UK risks becoming a “failed state” unless the government makes major reforms. Mr Brown urged No 10 to move further on devolution and replace the House of Lords with a “senate of the regions”.Meanwhile, work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey brought an interview on Good Morning Britain to an abrupt end after falling out with host Piers Morgan on Covid death rates. “I’m sorry Piers … I’m going to go,” the minister said before hanging up.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
1611583085Boycott any ‘wildcat’ referendum, says Scottish Tory leaderScottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said politicians from union-backing parties should boycott any “wildcat” independence referendum arranged by the SNP without approval from the UK government.He stressed the stressed the 2014 vote had been the “gold standard of referendums” – saying a Section 30 order from Westminster would be the only “correct mechanism”.
Ross added: “No-one who believes in democracy should enter into this wildcat referendum that would have no actual bearing in terms of the outcome, would not be enforceable.”Asked about the matter on Monday, Boris Johnson refused to say whether he would mount a legal challenge if Nicola Sturgeon pressed ahead with a vote.
Adam Forrest25 January 2021 13:581611582419UK-New Zealand trade deal ‘weeks away’International trade Liz Truss is launching a new round of trade talks with her counterparts from New Zealand today, and officials are reportedly confident an agreement can be wrapped up before Easter.Speaking about the roll-over deal (another which essentially replicates the tariff-free arrangements the UK had with the country as part of the EU), Truss told The Sun: “We have made great progress so far, and I look forward to taking negotiations up a gear.”Truss could be given a more senior cabinet post at the next reshuffle after “impressing” Boris Johnson by securing a series of roll-over deals last year, according to The Mail. More

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has insisted politicians should boycott any “wildcat” referendum on independence without approval from the UK government.As tensions mount over calls for a second referendum on Scotland’s future inside the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson also refused to say whether he would mount a legal challenge if Nicola Sturgeon pressed ahead with a vote without the agreement of UK ministers.It comes after the SNP revealed an 11-point “roadmap” to a second ballot at the weekend, which made clear a “legal referendum” would be held after the pandemic recedes if May’s Holyrood elections result in a majority for Ms Sturgeon’s party.It stated the Scottish government will again request a Section 30 order under the 1998 Scotland Act from the UK government claiming there would be “no moral or democratic justification for denying that request”.The document added: “If the UK government were to adopt such a position its position would be unsustainable both at home and abroad.“However, in the election, the SNP’s proposition, for which we will be seeking the express authority of the Scottish people, will be clear and unambiguous — if there is a parliamentary majority so to do, we will introduce and pass a Bill so that necessary arrangements for the referendum can be made and implements thereafter once the pandemic is over.”In these circumstances, the SNP said the UK government could agree the Scottish parliament has the power to legislate for a referendum, agree for one to take place under a Section 30 order as was the case in 2014, or “take legal action to dispute the legal basis of the referendum and seek to block the will of the Scottish people in the courts”.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 weekdayDespite polls pointing towards a decisive victory, Mr Ross told an event hosted by the Centre for Policy Studies that he did not believe it was “inevitable” the SNP would win a majority, adding: “Independence is not inevitable either, we have just got to change that narrative.”He stressed the 2014 vote had been the “gold standard of referendums” then “no-one who believes in democracy should enter into this wildcat referendum that would have no actual bearing in terms of the outcome, would not be enforceable”.He said: “It is moving all the focus away from what Scottish politicians should be concentrating on right now: protecting jobs, improving the economy, supporting communities right across the country, making sure our education system is fit for our young people.”That is where the focus should be, not on wildcat referendums, which I would absolutely boycott because they would be an absolute waste of precious time and resources when our focus should be on defeating Covid-19, rolling out the vaccine and concentrating on our economic recovery.”The Scottish Conservative leader added that only a Section 30 order would be the “correct mechanism” if another independence referendum were to be held, “as that is how the two governments agreed the 2014 referendum”.Mr Ross went on: “They agreed that was the gold standard because it went through a Section 30 order, there was a discussion between the Scottish and UK government and agreed position in terms of the franchise, the date, the question was arrived at.Asked earlier if he would legally challenge the plans for an advisory referendum, Mr Johnson told reporters: “The whole UK is going through a pandemic, I think what the people of the UK want to see is everybody focusing on beating that pandemic, which we are, rolling out the vaccine, and getting ready to bounce back from that pandemic and have the strongest possible economic recovery.”Sidestepping the question, the prime minister added: “I think people also can see everywhere in the UK the visible benefits of our wonderful union. “A vaccine programme that is being rolled out by a National Health Service, a vaccine that was developed in labs in Oxford and is being administered by the British Army, so I think the strengths and advantages of the union speak for themselves.” More

The government is “actively” considering making travellers quarantine in hotels on arrival in the UK, the prime minister has said.Speaking on Monday Boris Johnson said ministers were “definitely looking at” the policy, which would be aimed at preventing the spread of new coronavirus strains.The UK currently has one of the worst coronavirus deaths rates in the world was the apparent source of a new, supposedly more virulent variant.But ministers are concerned that other variants, such as one thought to have emerged in South Africa, could undermine its vaccinations efforts or prove more deadly if they are allowed to spread.A requirement for travellers to self-isolate at home on arrival in the UK has seen little enforcement or surveillance to make sure people are complying.Instead, the government is said to be in talks with hotels about turning them into quarantine centres, as some other countries such as Cyprus have done.Mr Johnson said: “We have to realise there is at least the theoretical risk of a new variant that is a vaccine-busting variant coming in, we’ve got to be able to keep that under control.”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 weekdayThe prime minister went on: “With this vaccination programme, we’ve done I think 6.3, 6.4 million people now in the UK as a whole.”We are on target just, just, we’re on target to hit our ambition of vaccinating everybody in those vulnerable groups by the middle of February.”We want to make sure that we protect our population, protect this country against reinfection from abroad.
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The prime minister is coming under intense pressure to get children back into classrooms after health secretary Matt Hancock failed to rule out the possibility that they will remain closed until the Easter holidays.Speaking during a visit to a coronavirus vaccination site in north London on Monday, Mr Johnson said that, while he could not provide a date now,  parents and pupils should not assume that this meant they would have to wait until mid-April.“Schools obviously will be a priority but I don’t think anybody would want to see the restrictions lifted so quickly while the rate of infection is still very high so as to lead to another great spread of infection,” he said.“I understand why people want to get a timetable from me today, what I can tell you is we’ll tell you, tell parents, tell teachers as much as we can as soon as we can.”Ministers have promised to give schools two week’s notice of any date for the return of all pupils, meaning that reopening at the end of half-term on 22 February would require an announcement within two weeks.The prime minister said the government will be “looking at the potential of relaxing some measures” at the review of the England-wide lockdown scheduled for 15 February.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 weekdayBut he added: “I do think now this massive achievement has been made of rolling out this vaccination programme, I think people want to see us making sure we don’t throw that away by having a premature relaxation and then another big surge of infection.“I totally understand the frustrations of parents, I really thank teachers for what they’re doing, the immense efforts they’re going to to teach kids online, and the Government has provided a lot of laptops… I know that’s no substitute for direct face-to-face learning.“Believe me there’s nothing I want to do more than reopen schools, I’ve fought to keep schools open for as long as I possibly could.“We want to see schools back as fast as possible, we want to do that in a way that is consistent with fighting the epidemic and keeping the infection rate down.”Mr Johnson said that people “mustn’t assume” that schools will now remain closed until Easter, insisting that the government was constantly looking at infection data and wanted to reopen schools as soon as possible.Education Secretary Gavin Williamson is widely expected to confirm this week that there will be no return to the classroom after the February half-term break as ministers had hoped.Ministers believe that infection rates and pressure on the NHS need to come down further before the move can be considered, with no guarantee that classes will resume before Easter.But the chair of the Commons Education Committee today suggested that restrictions on other social and economic activities could be tightened in order to allow schools to reopen safely.Robert Halfon told the BBC: “It may be that one thing the government should consider is that even if there are tighter restrictions in other parts of our society and economy, you have those restrictions in order to enable the schools to open.“The Government said that the intention was to open the schools again after the February half-term – over the weekend in the newspapers it was indicated that the schools now won’t open until Easter, so that’s why I’m urging clarity for parents, children, teachers and support staff as to what the Government plans are because there’s enormous uncertainty.”Former chief whip Mark Harper, chairman of the Covid Recovery Group of lockdown-sceptic Conservative MPs, again called for an early March easing of restrictions.He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that two or three weeks after the four priority groups have been vaccinated – due mid-February – lockdown measures should start being lifted.“At that point you need to start bringing the economy back to life, and the first thing that needs to be reopened are our schools so our children can get back, mix with their friends, and enable their education and their social development to take place,” Mr Harper said.“What we are asking for now is the Government to set out that plan and bring some clarity.”The latest Government figures showed more than 6.3 million people across the UK have received their first dose of the vaccine – with a record-breaking 491,970 being injected in a single day over the weekend.Based on the latest figures, an average of 393,031 first doses of vaccine would be needed each day in order to meet the Government’s target of vaccinating the top four priority groups – including all over-70s – by mid-February.The programme, which involves delaying a second dose for 12 weeks rather than three in order to increase the number of people who are given an initial shot, has been criticised by the British Medical Association.But Professor Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said he believed protection would continue to increase from the initial first dose throughout the 12-week period.He told the BBC that people could be “misled” by critics complaining there is a lack of data for the Government’s approach, insisting there is “absolutely rock-solid evidence that if you give a dose of the vaccine to more people you give them protection and save lives”.Meanwhile, senior ministers are due to meet on Tuesday to discuss a proposal to require travellers arriving in the UK to pay to quarantine at a designated hotel to ensure they are following the rules on self-isolating.The proposal is said to have the backing of key ministers including Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove, as well as Health Secretary Matt Hancock.It was prompted by the emergence of new variants of the virus in Brazil and South Africa which scientists fear may be less susceptible to the vaccines that have been developed. 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