UK Covid live: Boris Johnson to lift all remaining restrictions in England

February 21, 2022
| No Comments



5.10am EST

05:10

Rajeev Syal

Rajeev Syal

Ministers will reject making misogyny a hate crime in England and Wales and urge MPs to get behind controversial legislation that has been criticised for curbing the right to protest as the government seeks to push through major changes to the criminal justice system.

In a move which will set up a clash with conservative backbenchers and opposition MPs when the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill returns to parliament next week, the home secretary, Priti Patel, will write to members on Monday saying the government will oppose a Lords amendment that would extend hate crimes to cover misogyny.

The home office said its rejection is based on a Law Commission report, which warned that extending hate crimes to cover misogyny would prove “more harmful than helpful” to victims of violence against women and girls.

The government says it is also “carefully considering” a new offence of street harassment that would criminalise the verbal abuse of women, pestering and persistent cat-calling or making lewd comments.

The letter comes after the government has been forced into a series of concessions on crime and violence against women and girls over the last few months.

Responding to the letter, Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, condemned Patel for failing to introduce new legislation to tackle hatred against women.

She said:

It is shameful that the home secretary is still refusing to make violence against women and girls a strategic policing requirement so it has the same prominence as tackling organised crime.

She is also still refusing to establish specialist rape units in every police force area or minimum sentence for rape and stalking, and shockingly is still resisting Labour’s proposals for action against landlords who pressurise tenants into sex for rent.

Read the full story here:



4.52am EST

04:52

Paul Scully said it would be down to employers and employees to make decisions over self-isolating.

The business minister told Sky News:

I would say that it’s like any illness, frankly, any transmissible illness that you would say stay at home.

He said if an employee had flu, they would be expected to stay at home, “but it’ll be down to themselves or down to their employer”.

Asked what action employees should take if their employers tried to force them in if they were ill with Covid, Scully said:

This is why we need to make sure that we’ve got really good guidance for employers.

But as I say, there will come a time when the pandemic moves to more of an endemic approach to Covid, in the same way that flu and other viruses are treated, and that’s what we’ve got to get back to.

But it’s a fine balance, clearly, and that’s why cabinet’s meeting this morning, to go through the science, to go through that balance and debate it and then, obviously, the prime minister (will) come before parliament to make his announcement.

Updated
at 5.04am EST



4.38am EST

04:38

The public should not “work and live under government diktat for a moment longer than is necessary”, a minister has said.

Business minister Paul Scully told Sky News it was important to make changes to coronavirus rules “to allow the economy to recover, to allow people to get back to a sense of normality, whilst keeping people safe, clearly”, as Boris Johnson prepared to launch his “living with Covid” plan.

Scully said:

Infections are coming down quite rapidly, the hospitalisations and deaths are following as well – they tend to lag behind, obviously, the case numbers – but nonetheless you can see the trend within that.

Scully said the prime minister will be “looking at the best advice possible but getting the balance right”.



4.31am EST

04:31

The government’s “living with Covid” plan is due to be announced today, despite concerns from scientists, health experts and Labour that the move is premature.

Johnson said the proposal would be about “finally giving people back their freedom” after “one of the most difficult periods in our country’s history”.

The legal requirement for anyone with Covid to isolate will be ditched a month earlier than planned, while free PCR and lateral flow tests for everyone will be axed to rein in public spending and attempt to restore people’s confidence that life can return to normality. The tests will reportedly be kept for the over-80s.

The national contact tracing service is expected to be wound down and schoolchildren will no longer be told to get tested twice a week.

Fresh guidance is expected to be issued, similar to that already published about seasonal flu, designed to let individuals make their own judgments about the risk of catching or transmitting Covid, my colleague Aubrey Allegretti reports.

Following meetings over the weekend the cabinet will be assembled to rubber stamp the plans today before a Commons statement by the prime minister and a press conference in the evening, likely to feature the government’s two leading pandemic advisers, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance.

The changes will start to come into effect from later in the week, reportedly on Thursday which is being dubbed “Freedom Day” by some newspapers.

Welcome to today’s politics live blog. I’m Nicola Slawson and I’ll be taking the lead today. You can contact me on Twitter (@Nicola_Slawson) or via email (nicola.slawson@theguardian.com) if you have any questions or think I’m missing something.

You can also follow our dedicated Ukraine crisis blog here:

Meanwhile, our global coronavirus blog is here:

Covid-19