Health News at Your Fingertips

We have not heard much about the Labour reshuffle yet, but here are two snippets from two political editors.

From my colleague Heather Stewart

From the Mirror’s Pippa Crerar

Rosena Allin-Khan, the shadow health minister, angered Sajid Javid, the health secretary, when she responded to his Covid statement earlier by critising the Tories for their record on mask wearing. She has repeated the point on Twitter.

The latest update to the UK’s Covid dashboard shows the total number of cases over the past seven days up 3.7% on the previous week. There have been 42,583 cases recorded today. But deaths are down 18.4% week on week, with 35 recorded today.

Mark Harper, chair of the Tory lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group, says he hopes the measures will lapse after three weeks. If they have to be extended, he asks for an assurance that MPs will be recalled from the Christmas recess for that purpose.

Rees-Mogg says he has allocated three hours for the debate tomorrow, not the 90 minutes required, because the government takes the views of MPs’ seriously. He says he cannot say what will happen in three weeks’ time, but it was only Oliver Cromwell who made the house sit on Christmas day, he says.

Chris Bryant (Lab) says the regulations have not even been laid yet (published, so that they can read by MPs) and they will come into effect before the debate tomorrow. That is wrong, he says. They should be debated first.

Rees-Mogg says they are being laid at 5pm. If Bryant’s question had lasted a little longer, they would have been out before he finished.

The Javid statement is over. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, has just made a short business statement saying the debate on the new Covid restrictions will take place tomorrow, before the SNP debate. (See 3.37pm.)

He says the Covid debate will run for three hours. And the SNP will get three hours for its debate too, he says.

Earlier, in his question to Javid in the Commons, Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative chair of the health committee, said low vaccine rates in poorer countries amounted to a “moral failure” by richer countries. He said:

Whilst I recognise the enormous contribution the UK has made through Covax, through the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine and so on, is it not a moral and practical failure that richer countries have managed to vaccinate 60% of their populations when for poorer countries it is just 3%?

Javid said that he agreed, but he claimed the UK cold be proud of its record donating vaccines.

Dame Diana Johnson (Lab) asks Javid if he thinks all MPs in the chamber should be wearing masks.

Javid says they all know what the guidance is, and it is up to them.

Back in the Commons Javid says there are no plans that he is aware of to close schools early because of Omicron. That would be “very detrimental” to the education of children, he says.

Humza Yousaf, the Scottish government’s health secretary, has confirmed that Scotland has welcomed and will implement the latest recommendations from the JCVI. (See 3.43pm.)

Alun Cairns, the former Tory Welsh secretary, says infection rates are higher in Wales even though it has kept working from home and mask wearing in place.

Javid says he thinks England has had the best approach.

Chris Byrant (Lab) asks Javid to look at disinformation campaigns being carried out. Some of these are dangerous.

Javid says he agrees with Bryant on disinformation campaigns. The government is trying to counter this, he says.