Health News at Your Fingertips

According to the Financial Times’ Jim Pickard, figures from Transport for London suggest Tube and bus use in London has increased by less than 10% compared to this time last week.

These figures undermine Boris Johnson’s claim earlier (see 11.20am) that “people are going back to the office in huge numbers.”

Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary who now chairs the Commons health committee, asks if the government intends to roll out regular weekly testing for NHS staff.

Hancock says he wants to deploy testing as widely as possible, following clinical advice.

Hancock is responding to Ashworth.

He says he “bows to no one” in his enthusiasm for mass testing. He says he pushed his neck out when he set the 100,000 tests per day target. Now the government needs to increase testing again, he says.

But he says he will only use tests that have been validate. Saliva tests are still being worked on, he says.

Turning to local testing, he says local lockdowns are working. And the government does publish the data used to justify them, he says.

He says councils are required to seek consensus with local elected officials, including MPs, before announcing local lockdowns. But he says in some cases it is not possible to reach a consensus.

On vaccines, he says MPs are at one in their “abhorrence” at the anti-vax movement. He says a vaccine will only be rolled out when it has been approved by regulators.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, is responding to Hancock.

He says the government’s test and trace system is now yet “world-beating”, as Boris Johnson promised. (See 3.26pm.)

He says Hancock now seems to support mass testing. When will weekly testing by introduced for all frontline NHS workers?

He asks when a rapid test will be introduced, and who will be able to get it first? And will a saliva test be rolled out?

He asks why Hancock ignored local council leaders, but followed the advice of the Tory MP Sir Graham Brady, chair of the backbench Conservative 1922 Committee, when he agreed to lift some restrictions in the north west.

And he asks why Hancock thinks restructuring Public Health England now will help.

Ashworth ends by saying that the UK has suffered by the highest per capita death rate from coronavirus of any developed country in the world.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is now making a statement to MPs about coronavirus.

He says the number of deaths is now very low. The latest daily death toll recorded just two deaths, he says.

But he says that in France and Spain the number of cases is increasing “exponentially”. And he says hospital cases are going up too.

He says the government must remain vigilant. He summarises the steps it is taking.

It will be reminding people what they can do to stop the spread of the virus. An advertising campaign will remind people to wash their hands, cover their fast in certain places and socially distance. And people who are ill should get a test, he says.

He says testing and contact tracing continues. Some 60m tests have been carried out, he says.

He says the government is looking at new technology to improve testing.

More financial support is being made available, from today, for people who need to self-isolate, he says.

And he says that work is continuing on a vaccine. And he says the government will bring forward plans so that, when a vaccine does become available, a wider range of medical personnel are allowed to vaccinate people.

Here is the full quote from Matt Hancock in the Commons earlier when he claimed that England’s test-and-trace system was now “in the top tranche” internationally. Hancock was responding to a question from the Conservative MP Jack Lopresti, who wanted to know how the country was doing by international standards. Hancock replied:

Well, of course, we learn the lessons and I talk to my international counterparts including in Germany and South Korea. Actually, compared to international systems … we are now absolutely in the top tranche and we’re constantly looking all around the world to how we can improve the operation of test and trace.

In May Boris Johnson promised that a “world-beating” test-and-trace system would be up and running by 1 June. A national system did launch in England before the start of June, but in its early days it was widely criticised and, as this Twitter thread explains, in some respects it is still performing badly. Johnson, though, has defended the “world-beating” tag on the grounds that “we are now testing more per head of population than virtually any other country in Europe”.

Matt Hancock, the health and social care secretary, is taking questions in the Commons now. There is a live feed at the top of the blog.

In response to the first question, from Labour’s Sam Tarry, who claimed that the test-and-trace system was repeatedly failing to hit its target for the number of contacts of people testing positive reached and advised to self-isolate (80% is the goal), Hancock said the most recent figures showed 84.3% of contacts were reached, where contact details were provided.

In response to another question, he said England’s test-and-trace system was “in the top tranche” internationally.

Hancock did not clarify exactly where the 84.3% figure came from. The latest weekly bulletin from NHS test and trace, published last week, said 72.6% of contacts were reached in the last week for which figures were available.

After that document was published, the Press Association’s Ian Jones posted this on Twitter.

Boris Johnson has posted this on Twitter, promoting his new LinkedIn account. (See 1.57pm.)

The Downing Street lobby briefing has finished. Here are the main points.

• The prime minister’s spokesman said Brussels was making it “very difficult” for the two sides to make progress in the UK-EU trade talks. In a statement likely to heighten fears that London is preparing for the talks to collapse, and for the UK to be left without a trade deal with the EU once the transition period ends in December, the spokesman said:

We concluded the seventh round of negotiations on the 21 August and, while we had useful [discussions], little progress was made. An agreement is still possible, and it is still our goal, but it is clear that it will not be easy to achieve. The EU is still insisting, not only that we must accept continuity with EU state aid and fisheries policy, but also that this must be agreed before any further work can be done in any other areas of the negotiation, including on legal text, making it very difficult to make progress.

We will continue to work had to reach agreement and look forward to the next round taking place next week.

No 10 has in recent weeks repeatedly been stressing the possibility of the talks ending in no deal, but this is one of most negative briefings we’ve had yet.

• The spokesman said there was no change to the government’s commitment to maintaining the 0.7% aid target, which obliges the government to spend 0.7% of national wealth on overseas aid. At the weekend the Sun reported that the target, which is deeply unpopular with many Tory MPs, would be axed. Asked about the report, the spokesman said there was “no change” to the government’s commitment to spend 0.7% of national wealth on aid. He went on:

We have discussed previously the large amounts of speculation that you have read over the weekend. It was just that – speculation. There is on change with regard to the commitment on 0.7%.

• The spokesman said that Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the international development secretary, would be eligible for a pay-off when her job ends tomorrow. Her department is being merged with the Foreign Office, and today was her last cabinet meeting.

• The spokesman refused to endorse what Tony Abbott said this morning about social distancing measures being undesirable. (See 12.14pm.) The spokesman said Johnson wanted people to follow social distancing rules. The spokesman also claimed that no final decision has yet been made as to whether Abbott, the rightwing former Australian PM, will be made a UK trade envoy. My colleague Patrick Wintour’s full story about Abbott’s comments is here.

• Johnson told cabinet this morning that the government would not let the coronavirus crisis distract it from its domestic agenda, the spokesman said.

• Cabinet ministers were told this morning that the country needed to remain “vigilant” about the risk posed by coronavirus, the spokesman said. The warning came from Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Sir Patrick Vallance, its chief scientific adviser, who briefed cabinet.

• The spokesman was unable to provide figures to justify Boris Johnson’s claim at cabinet that Britons are returning to the office “in huge numbers”. (See 11.20am.) Asked what evidence there was to back this up, the spokesman said that having schools go back would give parents greater flexibility. But he added: “It is too soon for us to be able to share figures with you about people returning to work today.” When it was put to him that it would be more accurate for the PM to say he wants people to return to the office in large numbers rather than claiming that they are already, the spokesman repeated the point about his not having data available to share. But he stressed the benefits of people returning to the office. It was good for employees’ learning and development, he said; staff benefited from being able to meet face to face; and having workers in offices was good for the local economy.

• The spokesman said government adverts would be rolled out later this week encouraging people to return to the workplace. He said:

Later this week you can expect us to run our latest phase of our All In, All Together campaign and what that will look at is reiterating our guidance on how to return safely to work. It is the campaign we have been running with both regional and local media.

Some of the things we’ve looked at so far is the support that is available to businesses, how to shop safely and also what people need to know about NHS Test and Trace.

The next phase we’ll look at is specifically the guidance on how to get back to work safely, and you can expect to see that later this week.

• The spokesman said that Boris Johnson is joining LinkedIn, the employment networking social media site. The spokesman said that he would be using it to engage with business as the economy recovers and that he would be posting written and video content on it promoting British business.

• The spokesman effectively confirmed reports that Johnson asked Prince William to agree that Simon Case could become the next cabinet secretary. Case had been due to return to his post at the prince’s private secretary. Asked about the reports, the spokesman said:

I saw that report … I don’t think I would have any argument with it. As you would expect, No 10 works closely with the Royal Household.

Tom Newton Dunn from Times Radio posted a Twitter thread on this last night. It starts here.

• The spokesman said that around 40% of schools in England were reopening today. Other schools are reopening later (sometimes because teachers have inset days). Asked how the process was going, the spokesman said that he did not have figures on the proportion of pupils returning yet, but he said in Leicestershire, where pupils started returning last week, there was a good response. The full data about the proportion of pupils in class is due to be published on 15 September.

• The spokesman refused to say what proportion of Whitehall civil servants were working in the office. But he did say: “You can expect to see more civil servants return to the office in the coming weeks.”

• The spokesman refused to endorse what Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said last week about it being fine for his officials to work from home. Hancock said he was concerned about the quality of their work, not their location. But, asked if the PM agreed, the spokesman said he wanted more workers back in the office.

• The spokesman confirmed that Ofqual is carrying out a consultation into whether next year’s A-levels and GCSEs should be delayed to help pupils catch-up on missed learning. He said:

The education secretary [Gavin Williamson] wrote to Ofqual about this on June 18. Ofqual then began a consultation on the idea of exams starting after the May half-term. Ofqual will set out their final view in due course and we will wait to see what that recommendation is.

Bolton council is urging the government to abandon plans to ease the lockdown restrictions in the town from tomorrow, my colleague Josh Halliday reports.

As Josh reports in a story this morning, the decision to ease restrictions in some areas in the north-west of England that was announced at the end of last week was strongly opposed by some local Labour MPs and council leaders.