That’s all for our UK coronavirus live blog for today. Please follow developments worldwide on our global live blog.

There was only one case of Covid-19 among prisoners confirmed in the most recent 24 hour period, an increase of 0.25%, a daily update from the Ministry of Justice shows.

As at 5pm on Tuesday, 401 prisoners had tested positive for the coronavirus across 74 prisons, up from 400 on Monday.

The number of infected prison staff stood at 501 workers across 70 prisons, up 2% in the same period. Prison staff have access to testing, while prisoners access is limited.

There are 81,000 prisoners in England and Wales across 117 prisons, while there are around 33,000 workers in public-sector prisons.

The number of cases and deaths in prisons have been much lower than expected in part due to the highly restrictive regime introduced in March, which means prisoners are spending less than an hour of their day out of their cells.

At least 21 prisoners have contracted Covid-19 and died, while at least eight staff have died, including one prisoner escort and custody services worker.

This is from Anthony Costello, a former director of the Institute for Global Health at the University College London and a former director of the World Health Organisation, on what Jenny Harries and Robert Jenrick were saying at the press conference. (See 5.47pm.)

Q: Will the Treasury continue to fund the furlough scheme for Scotland if it needs to keep people off work longer?

Jenrick says the scheme will continue to reflect the needs of working people across the UK.

Q: Can you offer specific assurances to Scotland?

Jenrick says there is no cliff edge. The scheme has been extended, he says.

Q: What impact will the changes introduced today have on the R number?

Harries says the interventions are designed to keep R below one.

It is hard to know what impact certain measures will have. But most of the measures introduced this week relate to outdoors, where the risk is lower, she says.

If people practice social distancing, R should stay below 1, she says.

And that’s it. The press conference is over.

Q: What is causing excess deaths in care homes?

Harries says some of them will have died from Covid. That is highly likely, she says.

She also says it is important for people to continue to use emergency health services.

Q: Care homes were told there was very little chance of their being infected until 13 March. Why did they not get better support?

Harries says what matters is not just testing and discharge policy. Infection control matters too.

She says this was a Public Health England document. They were monitoring background risk.

She says the alert system would have been stepped up when the background risk increased.

You should judge the document by what the background risk was, she says. She says when that document was published, community transmission was not a problem.

Q: If the schools don’t reopen in June, what does that mean for the economic recovery?

Jenrick says Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, is doing all he can to reach an agreement with the unions for school reopening.

Q: The French government says pupil are safer at school than at home. Are children safer at school, or travelling to school?

Harries say you need to think about where children will flourish. It is not just infection control. Vulnerable children in particular benefit from being at school, she says.

And if children do not feel comfortable in education in their early years, that will affect them negatively in the years ahead, including in health outcomes.

Q: Has the government ruled out tax increases, scrapping the triple lock on pensions, or a public sector wage freeze?

Jenrick says these are matters for the chancellor.

The government wants to protect as many businesses as possible.

He says he has announced a reopening of the housing market.

Q: Will teaching staff be penalised if they refuse to go to work in June?

Jenrick says the education secretary is working closely with the teaching unions to ensure teachers are comfortable about going back. Many teachers have already been working, he says.

Q: Why were you happy to stand her and present the global death comparison slide, when the government now says that data is unreliable?

Harries says as a scientist she believes in transparency.

The death data is available, she says.

She says she and other scientist have all highlighted the risks with comparative death data.

The only really good comparison will be all-cause excess mortality, adjusted for age of population, and seasonally adjusted too.

But she says it is always good to look at comparisons on the way, to see what you can learn.

Q: Can you see why people find this suspicious?

Jenrick says the government wants to be as transparent as it can. But accurate comparisons are difficult.

Q: Many care home beds are now empty. How will this money help them stay open?

Jenrick says the money announced today follows £3.2bn that has gone to councils, most of which are councils with responsibility for adult social.

He says smaller care homes should also get expert advice.

Harries says NHS England already had a plan of advanced support for care homes. That has been brought forward. She says this will be useful in small care homes that have difficulty maintaining clinical skills.

Q: Wouldn’t it be better to let the care homes spend the money on whatever they want? Some are facing closures.

Jenrick says councils should be passing the money on to the front line.

Q: Why can’t the government get a grip on care homes?

Jenrick says it is essential they get the help they need. Today the PM announced another £600m for councils, for spending on care homes.

He says this should allow more continuity with staff. Care homes will also get PPE and testing, he says.

Harries says good infection control is also important.

Q: But there aren’t enough tests for care homes. The government does not seem to be getting a grip.

Jenrick says the package announced today builds on work that has been going on for weeks.

Northern Ireland’s Nightingale hospital for treating patients with Covid-19 is being temporarily stood down.

The facility at the City Hospital’s tower block treated 30 people in intensive care beds at the height of the first wave of virus infection, Stormont’s health minister Robin Swann said.

The country’s rate of infection stands at 0.79, meaning less than one person is catching it for every confirmed case, but Swann said the decision was made based on the number of coronavirus cases the hospital was now dealing with. He added:

It was one of the key strategic tools for tackling Covid-19. We are not doing away with it, it will be there if we have need for it.

Northern Ireland’s chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said reducing the health service’s escalation level will ensure it is able to respond and redeploy to non-Covid-19 cases. Doctors would be able to deal with urgent surgeries and treatments. McBride added:

We have to undertake that gradually and cautiously.

Laura from Rossendale asks when meeting in “bubbles” of different households might be allowed.

Jenrick says that is not allowed at the moment.

Harries says operating a bubble system could be complicated. If two large families were allowed to meet up, you would get a large gathering.

Jenrick is now taking questions.

The first is from Michael, a member of the public. He says he works in theatre. What will the government do to protect the theatre industry?

Jenrick says the theatre industry is incredibly important. All of us care about it, he says. It is important for our wellbeing too.

He says the government has set up job retention schemes, for employers and the self-employed.

He says the culture secretary is working with the sector on how social distancing can be applied when theatres do open up.

Dr Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer for England, is now going through the rest of the slides.

Here are the latest transport figures.

Here is the slide for testing figures.

Jenrick says people (in England) can now move house if they want to.

He says they have to follow the guidelines on the government’s website.

He says he can understand why people might think it is odd to be allowed to visit a stranger’s house (if they are buying), but not a relative’s.

But, he says, in the first instance buyers should inspect a house online. There should be no open viewings, and no speculative viewings, he says.

Jenrick is now going through the daily slides.

This slide set out what is and isn’t allowed (in England, although Jenrick does not say that.)

He says the government hopes to be able to allow churches to open for private worship soon.

In the latest episode of the Politics Weekly podcast, Jonathan Freedland chats to The Guardian’s political correspondent Peter Walker about the latest goings on in Westminster, including whether or not the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has done enough to save the economy from collapse.

He then speaks to Ayesha Hazarika and Andrew Gimson about whether the pandemic will bring about fundamental change in opposition politics, and also how the government should handle public messaging going forward.

Plus, Simon Jenkins discusses 20 years of London mayoral elections.

British universities could be at greater risk amid the Covid-19 crisis due to an “over-reliance” on Chinese postgraduate students in recent years, a report has warned.

A growth in first-year postgraduate students attending universities in the UK since 2008-9 has been largely driven by international students from non-EU countries such as China, according to the study by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi).

Chinese students, who formed 38% of the non-EU postgraduate cohort in 2017-18, may delay or cancel their plans to study at British university campuses from this autumn amid the Covid-19 crisis, and Hepi has warned some postgraduate courses could become “unviable” if international student numbers fall as institutions are reliant on their higher tuition fees.

The report shows that UK-domiciled postgraduate entrants increased by 10% between 2008-9 and 2017-18, but student numbers from overseas grew faster. Non-EU international student levels grew by 33%. It warns:

While the high levels of participation by Chinese students have provided much-needed stability to postgraduate numbers and fee income, the sector’s over-reliance on one particular country represents a risk factor.

It adds that Covid-19 has led to English proficiency exams required for new entrants being suspended within China and UK universities setting out plans for Chinese students to delay enrolling in the autumn.

It comes after a survey from Prospects last week suggested that nearly half of final year students are now contemplating studying a postgraduate course amid Covid-19. The poll, of more than 1,000 final year students, shows that 58% are putting gap year and travel plans abroad on hold and 47% are now considering studying a masters, PGCE or PhD course.

But Nick Hillman, director of Hepi, commented:

If international postgraduate numbers fall, some courses will become unviable - this is true even if there are more home postgraduates because of the higher fee levels for international students.

The results of tens of thousands of Covid-19 tests carried out by the government’s network of testing centres have not been shared locally, “disappearing into a data black hole” and stalling efforts to control the outbreak, it has been claimed.

A leaked email, seen by the Health Service Journal, said data from a new testing programme of non-NHS labs - managed by consultancy firm Deloitte - was not available, although the government said the issue has now been fixed.

Sent at the weekend from a regional NHS incident centre, the email said:

No new national testing programme (NTP) data will be reported in this brief from 4 May until further notice. This is due to the NTP testing numbers increasingly becoming unavailable.

A reporting solution for NTP data is being built into the (Department for Health and Social Care) portal - once available, it will be captured in this testing brief again.

The results of the tests were still fed into the national UK totals. However, only NHS lab results, which now account for less than half of all tests carried out, were said to be reported locally.

One source told the HSJ the local intelligence which should be produced from the testing system is “disappearing into a data black hole”, while a public health director from the south of England said there was no access to data from non-NHS labs. He said:

The system remains a mess - multiple routes to test, multiple command structures via the NHS. How are directors of public health expected to manage and direct testing?

We need to arrange testing for staff and for residents. But the NHS does some of it, mobile testing sites run by military do other bits, regional testing sites do others, but travel is a challenge.

Data on regional outbreaks will be vital to the success of the “test, track and trace” programme being implemented by the government, as it is meant to tell local organisations how many residents and staff in their area have tested positive and enable them to work out the capacity for more tests.

The full HSJ story is here.

“The coronavirus outbreak has changed the prime minister of the United Kingdom into the prime minister of England,” our colleague Martin Kettle argues in a new column. You are read it in full here.

The mayor of Greater Manchester, said the easing of the lockdown in England had come “too soon” for regions such as the north-west and that it was the byproduct of London-centric decision-making in Whitehall.

Andy Burnham said the north-west of England currently has more patients in hospital with coronavirus – 792 – than any other region in the UK and that he has not been reassured that lifting the lockdown was safe for all parts of the country. He described the UK government’s easing of restrictions as a mistake, adding:

I still take the view that if it’s not safe everywhere, it’s not safe anywhere.

Burnham said the current R rate – how many people, on average, will be infected by one person – in the north-west was 0.7 to 0.76, which is broadly similar to the UK-wide rate. If that figure rises above 1, that’s when the infection begins to spread more rapidly in the community.

He is calling for the UK government to give local leaders a regional breakdown of data on the rate of infection in their areas.

The mayor also said he was concerned that regional mayors were not represented in the government’s Cobra discussions, alongside the leaders of the devolved nations, adding:

Government has made a national decision on release from lockdown but has been overly influenced by the position in London, and the south-east. I think it’s right that the mayor of London is on Cobra, but I am concerned that there hasn’t been equal representation for the perspective from the English regions when it came to making national decisions about the release from lockdown.

More than 110,000 self-employed workers have applied for income support grants within hours of the government’s new scheme being launched.

HMRC said applications worth more than £340m were lodged within the first four hours after the self-employment income support scheme (SEISS) opened on Wednesday.

The scheme offers grants worth up to 80% of average trading profits for self-employed workers stuck at home due to coronavirus, paid in a single instalment capped at £7,500 to cover three months of lost income. Claims for lost work can be dated back to March and payments are due to land within six working days, the government said.

Derek Cribb, the chief executive of the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed, said:

For the self-employed, coronavirus is not only a health crisis, but also a pressing income crisis.

We are delighted that the government has heeded much of IPSE’s advice by setting up the self-employment income support scheme, which extends a much-needed lifeline to those self-employed people who are eligible for it.

Mike Cherry, national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said:

The self-employment income support scheme represents a lifeline for the millions of self-employed people who are expected to qualify.

We are particularly pleased to see the scheme opening earlier than scheduled, with a simple fast-track application and a promise for speedy payment.

However, Matt Dowling, the CEO and founder of the Freelancer Club, believes the scheme needs to go further. He said:

For countless freelancers, today offers nothing more than a further widening of the gap between them and the rest of society. An estimated 2 million self-employed people are ineligible for any help from the government. Those who earn too little, too much, started freelancing too late, or took time out to support children or loved ones: they’ve been left high and dry.

Without greatly increased, backdated financial aid they don’t stand a chance of weathering this storm. The government cannot continue to support employees who happen to be on pay-roll without also addressing the wholly inadequate support system put in place for the freelance and self-employed. We urge them to act, fast.

Greater Manchester police were called to more than 1,000 house parties and large gatherings over the bank holiday weekend, officials have said.

Bev Hughes, the deputy mayor of Greater Manchester, said she was “very, very concerned” that the considerable increase in social gatherings came after Boris Johnson said last Wednesday that he would announce a relaxation to the lockdown on Sunday, prompting headlines such as “Magic Monday” the following day.

Hughes said the government’s new guidelines for England were “not clear” while Ian Hopkins, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said they would make policing “more complex”.

Hopkins said his force had issued just under 300 fixed-penalty fines across the region since the lockdown came into force, a sign of “fantastic compliance”.

But he added:

A relaxation was always going to prove to be more challenging for us given that we’ve gone from what was a relatively strong message with some fairly clear legislation ... into something that’s now more fluid.

From a policing perspective that was always going to make it slightly more tricky, as people have more leeway around what they can and can’t do.

London minicab firm Addison Lee is to install screens between drivers and passengers from next week.

The company announced that it would implement the hygiene measure across its fleet of 4,000 vehicles. The screens will be clear “so as not to impede the driver’s visibility and enable clear communication”, according to the firm, which has already issued drivers with masks, gloves, hand sanitiser and disinfectant.

The firm’s chief executive, Liam Griffin, said:

If London is to gradually get moving again as the government adjusts its advice, it is vital to ensure that the public transport network is not overwhelmed, and that people have a clean and safe way to travel as they go back to work.

A three-day-old baby in South Wales has died in hospital after his mother contracted coronavirus, our colleague Aamna Mohdin reports. He is thought to be the UK’s youngest victim of Covid-19.

The takeaway firm Deliveroo has been accused by a cross-party grouping of MPs of “putting thousands of people at risk” by the way in which it has allegedly treated its riders during the lockdown.

Forty-four MPs ranging from former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to father of the House of Commons, Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley wrote to the ‘gig economy’ company to demand adequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), full pay for riders contracting the virus or self isolating with symptoms and an end to dismissals during the crisis.

In their letter, which is supporting a campaign by the the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain’s (IWGB), the MPs say:

Deliveroo couriers are low-paid, precarious workers, who are not able to self-isolate when sick or to protect their families, and clients and restaurant staff and other key workers including NHS staff are being potentially exposed to infection.

Deliveroo, which rejected the suggestion that it put profit above the safety of its riders, said: ““At Deliveroo, riders are at the heart of everything we do and we are working hard to support them during this unprecedented time. This includes distributing PPE kit to riders across the UK, supporting riders financially if they are unwell and keeping riders safe through contact-free delivery.”

Anti-poverty campaigners have denounced as “scandalous” new analysis which reveals that people living in the most deprived areas of Scotland are more than twice as likely to die from coronavirus as those living in the wealthiest parts (see 12.27pm), reflecting ONS data released at the beginning of the month which confirmed the devastating scale of the death toll in the poorest parts of England and Wales.

For the first time this morning the National Records of Scotland published additional analysis looking at the impact of deprivation on coronavirus death rates. Their analysis found that people living in the most deprived areas of Scotland were 2.3 times more likely to die with Covid-19 than those living in the least deprived areas.

Guardian analysis also indicates that death rates are higher in the most deprived areas of Scotland. The non-age standardised death rate is higher in council areas with a high concentration of deprivation.

Inverclyde local authority, which contains a large proportion of the most highly deprived parts of Scotland, continues to have the highest Covid-19 death rate in the country, at 13.2 per 10,000 people compared with the national rate of 5.8 per 10,000. Glasgow, which also has significant pockets of deprivation in the city, has a death rate of 8.05 by this measure.

The NRS analysis also found that the gap between rich and poor was smaller when considering the rate of deaths from all causes, at 1.9 times higher in the most deprived 20% than in the least deprived 20% compared with 2.3 times for coronavirus.

Muge Cevik, a clinical academic specialising in infectious diseases at the University of St Andrews, told the Guardian:

Coronavirus is a magnifying glass that highlights existing health inequalities. We know that there is a correlation between deprivation, over-crowding and pandemic hotspots. With Glasgow, we know that it is the most densely populated city in Scotland, with the lowest life expectancy, very high deprivation levels as well as being the most ethnically diverse area of the country.

People who face the highest deprivation also experience the highest risk of exposure and existing poor health puts them at risk of more severe outcomes.

Wales will welcome back people who live in England “with open arms” once the Covid-19 crisis is over, the Welsh minister for economy, transport and north Wales has said.

Ken Skates said for the moment road blocks were being set up to intercept people travelling in order to exercise - which is banned in Wales. Speaking at the Welsh government’s daily press conference, Skates said:

We’re working very closely with police forces around Wales and in England to try to minimise the instances of irresponsible behaviour.

It’s not just that people are travelling across the border. It’s also that some people are not acting appropriately within Wales and are travelling for exercise when they should not be doing so.

He said if the police felt they needed more powers the government would back them. “If further resources, further powers are required then we will support them in their endeavours.”

But addressing English people he said: “You will be very warmly welcomed to Wales when we are through this crisis.”

On public transport, Skates said the Welsh government would not ask people to avoid trains and buses in Wales because one in five people in Wales do not have a car. But he said there may be a need for key workers to be given priority on public transport.

At first minister’s questions in Edinburgh Nicola Sturgeon responded to the new figures showing that deaths in care homes still make up 57% of the total coronavirus deaths in Scotland, which is higher than the latest figure for England. (See 12.27pm.) She defended the figures, referring to the LSE analysis published earlier this morning, which suggests that care home deaths in England and Wales have been under-reported by up to 22,000.

Sturgeon said she was confident that the Scottish numbers were accurate, and that the figures were “broadly in line with evidence seen from other countries”. She said:

This tells us there is a particular issue here that is not unique to Scotland ... This is an intrinsic part of the really difficult nature of this virus.

The most recent equivalent data for England and Wales only runs to 1 May, making it difficult to directly compare the data north and south of the border. But up to 1 May, more Covid-19 deaths had occurred in hospitals than in care homes in England and Wales.

Research published by the London School of Economics in mid April found that, in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium, between 42% and 57% of deaths from the virus had been happening in care homes.

Judge-only trials without juries should be considered only “in extremis” and parliament should “take a deep breath” before making such radical changes, the lord chief justice has urged.

Giving evidence to the Lords constitution committee, Lord Burnett of Maldon indicated that if the pandemic continued for a long time and there were insurmountable physical distancing problems his preferred solution would be to reduce the jury size from 12 to seven. He told peers:

Trial by judge alone has been mentioned and had the support of some very senior members of the legal profession and former judges. I would see [that] as an option only in extremis.

The reasons we have jurors in criminal cases in England Wales is that an important aspect of it is to ensure public confidence [in trials] and to have public engagement in the administration of justice.

I would hope that parliament would take a deep breath before authorising judge-only trials, even temporarily, until parliament collectively were satisfied that less radical measures to ameliorate the situation were not good enough.

Asked what would happen if jurors were “frightened to attend”, Burnett said judges would be sensitive in considering reasons for them to be excused.

New jury trials, using two courtrooms and video links to space out participants, are due to start next Monday, 18 May. The first court centres to reopen for jury trials are expected to be the Old Bailey, Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester Minshull Street, Reading, Warwick, Winchester and Nottingham.

The education secretary Gavin Williamson said all teachers and school pupils will be able to be tested for Covid-19 if they develop symptoms when they return to schools.

Answering an urgent Commons question from the Liberal Democrat’s education spokeswoman, Layla Moran, Williamson said:

On Monday my department published initial guidance for settings on how to begin to prepare and we’ll work with the sector leaders to develop this further in the coming weeks.

This guidance sets out protective measures to minimise the risk of infection, including restricting class sizes and limiting mixing between groups.

Crucially all children and staff will have access to testing if they develop symptoms of coronavirus.

This will enable a track-and-trace approach to be taken to any confirmed cases.

William Wragg, a Conservative, asks what is being done to ensure that patients can access the NHS for non-coronavirus conditions.

Johnson says too many people are staying away from the NHS. He urges people to seek NHS treatment if they need it.

And that’s it. PMQs is over.

The Green MP Caroline Lucas says green economic recovery policies will deliver better returns than other ones. Does the PM agree that any airline asking for a handout should meet robust climate goals?

Johnson says CO2 emissions will dramatically be reduced this year. He says it is important to “entrench those gains”.

Kate Griffiths, a Conservative, asks about NHS workers and coronavirus.

Johnson says the government will take steps to ensure NHS staff are properly protected.

Simon Baynes, a Conservative, asks about the Llangollen steam railway.

Johnson says he has a picture at home of himself on it with William Hague. He wishes it the best.

The SNP’s Stewart Hosie asks why the PM is being “negligent” in not extending the Brexit transition.

Johnson says a lot of people in the country want to see Brexit done, and the argument about it over.

Fay Jones, a Conservative, says the Hay-on-Wye literary festival is going online this year. Does he look forward to it coming back?

Johnson congratulates the organisers for turning it into Hay-on-Wifi.

Peter Bone, the Conservative, says the Electoral Commission hounded four Brexit campaigners until last week they were cleared. He says the “politically corrupt, totally biased and morally bankrupt” commission should be abolished.

Johnson says people who publicised the investigation should report that no action is being taken.

But he ignores the call for the commission’s abolition.

Labour’s John Spellar says the Foreign Office is doing nothing to help people who indefinite leave to remain in the UK who are stranded abroad. Will the PM sort this out?

Johnson says the government is doing everything it can to bring people back.

Sir Ed Davey, the acting Lib Dem leader, asks the government to extend support for the self-employed. He says he is glad the government has extended the furlough scheme as the Lib Dems proposed.

Johnson jokes about Davey’s attempt to take credit for Rishi Sunak’s announcement. He says the current scheme will pay the self-employed up to £7,500.

Julian Smith, the Conservative former cabinet minister, says 90% of the homeless are now in accommodation. Will the government ensure that is permanent.

Johnson says the government wants to end rough sleeping by 2024. He says the government will invest in housing to make sure this can happen.

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says people will have seen pictures of packed buses in London today. Does the PM accept that in Scotland people should stay at home?

Johnson says, if you look at the totality of measures, there is much more that unites the nations of the UK than divides them.

Blackford says the PM’s encouragement for people to go to work is putting the progress at risk. He is risking workers’ safety, he says. He says there should be sufficient levels of testing available.

He says Johnson did not address the bus point.

Johnson says he does not want to see crowding on buses, or anywhere else. He says he wants TfL to lay no more tube trains.

On test, track and trace, he says this will be a huge operation for the whole country. Blackford should pay tribute to those involved. The UK now tests more than most other EU countries. And it will go up to 200,000 by the end of the month, he says.

Johnson says he remains committed to getting to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Starmer says public confidence in government decisions is crucial. Will the government publish the scientific advice decisions are based on?

Johnson says all Sage advice is published in due course. Sage has been involved at every stage, he says.

He says we cannot risk a second outbreak.

He says people can see what the government is trying to do.

The common sense of the British people got us through the first stage, he says. It will get us through the next stage too.

Starmer says it is the government that used to make this comparison. It is pretty obvious why the charts have been dropped, he says. He quotes Prof David Spiegelhalter saying comparisons are needed so that you can learn from other countries. If you drop the comparisons, you drop the learning.

He turns to childcare, and quotes a couple who cannot go back to work when they don’t have childcare.

Johnson says the UK does want to learn from other countries.

On childcare, he accepts that people without childcare cannot return to work. He will look into this case, he says.

Starmer says you can only solve the problem if the numbers are understood. So he was disappointed the PM did not have a number, he says.

He says the government used to compare the death toll with other countries. Yesterday the government stopped doing this. Why?

Johnson says the government has been going through a once-in-a-century pandemic. He says he has been advised that it is too early to make reliable comparisons. But he says that when the final figures do emerge he knows they will not be “anything other than stark and deeply, deeply horrifying”.

He says Starmer should contain his impatience.

Starmer quotes figures for excess deaths in care homes. The government must have looked into this. What is the government’s explanation?

Johnson says the ONS produces data, and the government produces data. Since the care home action plan began we are seeing an appreciable reduction in the number of deaths, he says. He says getting the R number down in care homes will be critical, he says.

Starmer says he is surprised that Johnson queries his own government’s advice. And he quotes from a doctor, quoted in the Telegraph. The cardiologist said:

We discharged known, suspected and unknown cases into care homes, which were unprepared with no formal warning that the patients were infected, no testing available, and no PPE to prevent transmission. We actively seeded this into the very population that was most vulnerable.

Starmer asks if the cardiologist was right.

Johnson says people in care homes are being tested.

The “big four” supermarket Morrisons is introducing a new “speedy shopping” system from today for customers doing smaller “basket” shops at all of its stores – to help them get in and out more quickly and cut lengthy queues in car parks.

A separate speedy shopping lane will be introduced outside stores, allowing three customers to enter for every “big shop” trolley shopper. Clear signage and dedicated staff will help guide shoppers and minimise queuing where possible.

Inside there will be dedicated speedy shopper checkouts - operated by staff and self-scan. To increase the speed of payments for basket customers, more self-scan tills will offer payment by card only.

The government is being urged to extend the coronavirus compensation scheme to transport workers following the death of a woman who died after being spat at on a railway concourse.

Belly Mujinga was a ticket officer worker at London’s Victoria station and was spat at while on duty by a member of the public claiming to have the virus. She died last month.

In April, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, launched a compensation scheme for NHS and care workers who die with coronavirus, providing £60,000 to the families of workers who die as a result of contracting the virus.

The Transport Salaried Staffs Association has written to the prime minister asking for the scheme to be extended to transport workers.

The union’s general secretary, Manuel Cortes, said in the letter:

Belly Mujinga was one of many transport workers bravely going to work to keep our country moving through the pandemic and ensuring that other key workers can get to their workplaces. She put herself on the front line and she has died of the virus.

We’re writing to ask you to extend the compensation scheme to Belly Mujinga’s family and to other transport workers who die from coronavirus. While we can’t change what happened to Belly, we can and should do everything in our power to prevent any more deaths from this horrific virus.

Hundreds of workers have reported their employers over claims that they are fraudulently taking furlough money from the government while pressuring employees to continue working.

HMRC confirmed it has received 795 reports of potential fraud related to the Job Retention Scheme and said it will now be “assessing” these cases in line with its usual procedures.

The scheme was introduced from March, with the government pledging to pay 80% of the wages of workers affected by the pandemic, in a bid to protect jobs.

On Tuesday, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, outlined plans to extend the furlough scheme until the end of October. The latest figures show that 7.5m jobs have been furloughed since its launch, with 935,000 employers choosing to furlough staff.

One stipulation of the scheme is that workers must not complete any work at all for their organisations to be eligible for the payout. Bosses at whistleblower support organisations told Sky News that many workers are scared to report employers who are asking them to continue to work despite claiming furlough support.

Liz Gardiner, the chief executive of Protect, said:

We expect this is just the tip of the iceberg. In this time of unprecedented change, when people are really worried about their jobs, it’s a really difficult thing to stand up and say: ‘I think you’re committing fraud, employer, and I’m going to report you.’

The Sky News story is here.

Police in England have no powers to enforce two-metre social distancing.

Fresh guidelines issued by the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council urges officers to only enforce what is written in law and that “government guidance is not enforceable, for example two-metre distancing, avoiding public transport or the wearing of face coverings in enclosed spaces”.

However, the guidance states police in Wales can enforce two-metre distancing, apart from in the workplace, where the requirement for safe distancing lies with Welsh local authorities.

The advice, set out in a document published on Wednesday after being sent out to forces on Tuesday night, follows updated coronavirus legislation coming into force.

Fines for breaches of regulation in England have increased - up to £100 for first-time offences, with a maximum sum of up to £3,200.

However, in Wales levels of fines still start at £60 up to a maximum of £120.

Guidance differs still in Scotland and Northern Ireland - we’ve outlined the differences in guidance across the regions.

Funds to support charities during the coronavirus crisis are “bedevilled by delay and a lack of transparency”, according to the chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).

Karl Wilding said of the £750m package announced by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, “it remains unclear how roughly half of the £160m allocated for distribution via central government departments is to be spent”.

Wilding said charities in some areas have been asked by departments to bid for funding, while others have heard nothing. “This does nothing for confidence in how decisions are being made,” he said. “The process needs to be simple and open.”

He added it is still unclear when organisations will be able to apply for the £370m to be distributed via the National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF).

“Reassurances that funding will be made available soon are starting to wear thin,” he said. “I have told the government and the NLCF that this pace isn’t good enough.”

He is calling on the government to offer clarity on how funds will be distributed, and what criteria will be used in decision making.

Today is the official start of step one of the move towards recovery set out by Boris Johnson in his coronavirus recovery plan. Theoretically the plan covers the UK, but the step one measures announced by the PM - particularly the suggestion that people who cannot work from home should go to work even if their job is non-essential - only apply to England.

In London the advice may be having some impact. According to Transport for London, the number of passengers using the London Underground today from the start of service to 6am was up by 8.7% compared with the same period last week.

The Cabinet Office has announced that five ministerial-led task forces will be established to determine how to reopen pubs, beauty salons, places of worship and leisure centres, as well as re-boot the aviation sector. In a statement, the Cabinet Office said it was the “government’s ambition to open as many of these other businesses and public places as possible over the coming months, when the scientific advice provided allows us to”.

The five task forces will look at the following sectors:

• Pubs and restaurants, led by the Department for Business, Energy and industrial Strategy (BEIS).
• Non-essential retail, including salons (BEIS);
• Recreation and leisure, including tourism, culture and heritage, libraries, entertainment and sport (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport).
• Places of worship, including faith, community and public buildings (Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government).
• International aviation (Department for Transport).

These five ministerial groups will help to decide how the government moves towards steps two and three, in phase two, guided by the five tests, and the five alert levels. Sam Macrory at the Institute for Government has a good explanation.

The archbishop of Canterbury has been making undercover visits to minister to patients at St Thomas’ hospital in central London, it has been reported.

Justin Welby has regularly volunteered as a chaplain at the hospital, which is close to Lambeth Palace, his London home, according to the Daily Telegraph (paywall). He has worn PPE over his black clerical shirt and dog collar, the paper said.

A source close to Welby told the paper

Justin has been a volunteer chaplain at St Thomas’s hospital since lockdown, working alongside other chaplains praying for the sick and dying. Tommy’s is his local hospital so he walks there.

He gets a lot of solace from doing it. Just being able to physically see people and pray with them during lockdown – it’s what the clergy has been doing the length and breadth of the country.

There is some personal risk but he doesn’t really think about that. He just thinks this is what Christians should be doing, helping others.

Hate crime toward south Asian and far-east Asian communities has increased 21% during the coronavirus crisis, as have reported incidents of “revenge porn”, ministers have told MPs.

Lady Williams, minister for countering extremism, told a home affairs select committee (Hasc) session on online harms during the Covid-19 pandemic that there had not been an increase in extremism generally but there had been increases in specific types of hate crime.

She said: “Extremism - certainly we’ve not seen an uptick in it generally but during the lockdown period, I’ve been speaking to our hate crime lead, and there’s been a 21% uptick in hate incident against the IC4 and IC5 community.”

IC codes are used by the police in radio communications and crime recording systems to describe the apparent ethnicity of a suspect or victim - IC4 relates to South Asian and IC5 relates to the Far East.

Hate crime attacks against Chinese people in the UK have been well-documented during the lockdown period, including individuals being spat and assaulted.

Police estimates suggest hate crime towards Chinese people is up three-fold.

In addition, Caroline Dinenage, digital and culture minister, told the committee that there had been a rise in revenge porn - that is, the sharing of private, sexual materials, either photos or videos, of another person without their consent both online and offline.

Dinenage said: “For adult users – we’ve seen a concerning increasing trend in things like revenge porn and sexploitation, calls to helplines along the lines of things like that.”

Here are three economics commentators on the Telegraph story about the Treasury leak. (See 9.30am.)

These are from Jonathan Portes, a former government economist who is now an economics professor at King’s College London.

This is from Rupert Harrison, who was chief of staff for George Osborne when Osborne was chancellor.

And Paul Mason, the former Newsnight economics editor who is now a prominent Labour campaigner, has posted a Twitter thread on the leak. It starts here.

And here are two of his proposals.

On the first day businesses in England are encouraged to resume operations, there was a noticeable rise in numbers of commuters across the capital during rush hour.

Waterloo station remained quiet, although a station shift manager told the PA Media news agency there had been an increase in passengers.

The manager said footfall throughout the crisis had been around 5% the normal level, which had risen to around 7% on Monday and Tuesday and around 10% on Wednesday so far.

Traffic was quick to build up during rush hour on the North Circular Road in London. When announcing the easing of lockdown restrictions on Sunday evening, Boris Johnson asked commuters to avoid public transport if they could.

But this video has surfaced on social media, showing people get off a busy bus in Stratford, east London, at around 6.30am this morning.

Yesterday the government admitted commuters may not be able to practise physical distancing effectively on public transport.

The Department for Transport said anyone who needs to take public transport should wear face masks, keep their distance from fellow travellers and try to avoid rush hour.

The number of vehicles sold by Aston Martin almost halved in the first three months of the year, as the British luxury carmaker was hit by the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.

The company said it had sold 578 vehicles in the first quarter, down from 1,057 in the same period last year.

It caused loss after tax to soar to £118.9m, up from £17.3m the year before, on revenue of £78.6m, down 60%.

“Covid-19 and the resulting global economic shutdown has had a material impact on our performance this quarter,” said Dr Andy Palmer, president and group chief executive.

All its manufacturing sites in the UK were closed from 25 March, and 93% of its network of dealers shut their doors at some point during the first quarter. Unsurprisingly, demand from dealers had been hit during the crisis.

Sales in China dropped by 86%, with the Europe, Middle East and Africa region dropping 30%. Sales tumbled by 57% in the Americas. The UK was more resilient, falling a mere 3%.

However, the company revealed what could be the first shoots of recovery. All 18 of its dealerships in China have reopened, and more than 15% of the global network are “fully open”.

On Monday it started producing bodies for its first luxury SUV at the St Athan factory, which opened last week.

Despite positive signs, most of Aston Martin’s staff are still furloughed, and its factories are only working to fulfil the orders they already have.

The company had already been struggling before the crisis hit, and its share price is down 93% compared to when it listed in October 2018.

As stark figures on Covid-19 deaths among BAME nurses emerge, we need to celebrate their generations-long contribution.

Despite accounting for just 20% of the workforce, 94% of doctors and 71% of nurses who have died from Covid-19 were black, Asian and minority ethnic. It has prompted NHS England to recommend risk assessments for BAME frontline staff to reduce their exposure to the virus.

Other pandemics have also proven deadly for medical staff. Health workers caught flu during both the 1918 and 1957 and 1968 flu pandemics.

And while an ethnic breakdown of the data is not available, some of the casualties of the 1957 and 1968 epidemics will have been black, Asian or from ethnic minorities.

It is even possible some BAME nurses working in the UK died in the 1918 epidemic. We just don’t know. But nurses from BAME backgrounds have been working in the NHS for generations.

Although many were part of the Windrush generation, coming from the Caribbean to the UK from 1948 to 1971 to work in the newly established NHS, they were not the first arrivals.

By 1954, more than 3,000 Caribbean women were training in British hospitals. By 1959, official statistics showed 6,365 nursing students in Britain who had come here from overseas. By 1966-67 the total number of nurses and midwives from overseas who trained here had risen to 16,745.

Research (Aunt Esther) by social historian Stephen Bourne has revealed that black nurses worked in the healthcare system long before the NHS was even thought of. Most would have been from within the British empire, including the Caribbean, India and countries in Africa.

An “extraordinary, exceptional and astonishing” GP has died aged 84 after contracting coronavirus.

Dr Karamat Ullah Mirza worked at Old Road Medical Practice at Clacton-on-Sea in Essex.

He died in hospital on Sunday.

His widow, Estelle, told the Clacton Gazette:

He was no ordinary man, he was an extraordinary, exceptional and astonishing man, who was absolutely fearless and daring and had enormous knowledge.

He worked endlessly for the NHS and non-stop for this country, and he was known and loved by everyone in Clacton and he loved all his staff and patients and this town.

She said he had been seeing patients until two weeks ago.

Dr Ed Garratt, chief executive of the NHS Ipswich & East Suffolk, NHS West Suffolk and NHS North East Essex clinical commissioning groups, said:

We are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Dr Mirza, a respected and much-loved GP who had served the patients in his local community for more than four decades.

Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and practice colleagues, and all our efforts will be focused on supporting them at this difficult time.

A small number of people who had contact with Dr Mirza are self-isolating at home as appropriate.

The Old Road Surgery in Clacton and its branch practice in St Osyth will be closed until Wednesday of this week at the earliest.

Both have undergone deep cleansing as a precaution.

Food waste generated by UK restaurants dishing up takeaways during the lockdown has risen as a result of consumers’ “unpredictable ordering patterns” during the pandemic, research has revealed.

Unusual fluctuations in demand have led to an increase in food waste generated in takeaway outlets rising from an average of £111 per restaurant per week in normal times to £148 – equivalent to a £16.7m rise for the sector as a whole since lockdown, according to the research.

Nearly half the restaurants surveyed – 45% – said they throw most food waste into the bin. Despite the erratic ordering patterns, consumers appear to be wasting less than they usually would in their own homes, the report found.

Britain’s fondness for takeaway food has created a £5bn-a-year business that has ballooned in the past decade. In recent weeks, the options have expanded as many restaurants have turned to takeout and delivery as an alternative to closure.

Parents of severely disabled children, are the “forgotten families on the brink of collapse” and are warning that they urgently need support as they are at the point of burnout.

Families with vulnerable children are providing complex, round-the-clock care with no respite or outside help. Many have had to cancel home carers’ services because of the lack of sufficient PPE or testing. Others are struggling to cope after respite and outside care services were cancelled.

“There’s not enough special educational needs staff at my daughter’s school to send her back,” said Jean Wilson, the mother of 17-year-old Emily, who is autistic, with severe learning disabilities and challenging behaviour.

My husband and I have to look after her 24 hours a day with no help because the local authority carers have been furloughed, while no thought has gone into giving direct support.

It has put a huge emotional and physical strain on an army of unseen parent-carers.

Shapps said a line had to be drawn “in order to gradually release things”, when asked why people can go to property viewings but not see family members outside of their household.

He told BBC Breakfast

We must understand, we have done so well in the last eight weeks we cannot throw that all away, and so these are baby steps.

If someone visits a home (for sale), that’s likely to be a one-off, if you are starting to visit your family again, that’s likely to be many more times.

Somewhere there has to be a line drawn where we say this is ok but this isn’t, in order to gradually release things.

And this is where that line is at the moment.

When asked about railway ticket officer Belly Mujinga, who died with coronavirus after being spat at while on duty at Victoria station, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said around 50 transport workers have died during the crisis.

He told BBC Breakfast:

My heart goes out to Belly’s family. Nobody should be spat at.

This is not a question of PPE, it’s just disgusting and I know that the British Transport Police are investigating.

So very, very sad, her death and indeed the deaths of around 50 transport workers is something I take particularly seriously.

Shapps said he had sent guidance to service operators, adding that personal protective equipment (PPE) was not “broadly recommended” for transport workers by Public Health England.

“Clearly, nobody should ever be spitting at somebody; that’s a criminal offence and I know that investigation is under way,” he said.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has urged people not to “flood back” on to public transport as they return to work.

The government said businesses in England closed because of the coronavirus pandemic should consider reopening from Wednesday if they can do so safely.

However, Shapps warned that the need to maintain social distancing meant capacity on the transport network would be limited. He told Sky News:

We are asking people to be very sensible and not flood back to public transport.

Even with all the trains and buses back to running when they are, there will not be enough space. One-in-10 people will be able to travel without overcrowding.

It is very important that we enable enough space on public transport for key workers, people who have no other option.

It is very important that people don’t overcrowd that system that will be extremely restricted for the time being.

Park rangers and security will “step in” if social distancing measures are ignored at open spaces, the boss of London’s Olympic Park has warned as restrictions on outdoor activities are eased.

Visitors will be watched closely, with many expected to flock to parks and recreational areas following the government’s relaxation of the “stay local” message in England, meaning people can drive to outdoor open areas.

Mark Camley, executive director of parks and venues at the London Legacy Development Corporation which runs the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London, has urged people not to travel far and to enjoy the outdoor spaces nearby.

Speaking on behalf of London’s major park authorities, Camley also said the police may get involved if people continually ignore the two-metre distancing advice.

He told the PA Media news agency:

The expectation now is that people will go out more as it gets warmer, so parks across London will have to introduce measures to ensure people stay two metres apart.

Messaging has been put out on pathways and fences around Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, for example, urging people to abide by social distancing measures, and to not engage with people outside their household.

We’ve even used the screen on the London Stadium to push the message out there.

We are really relying on people to use their own common sense, but some will ignore the advice unfortunately, and we will be deploying security and park rangers where necessary to step in and have a quiet word reminding those to stay apart.

If there are major issues, I think parks would not hesitate in getting the police involved, but we don’t want to get to that, we really want people to use their common sense.

An open letter to the public by park bosses, including the royal parks such as Hyde Park, advises people to “stay local” to avoid crowding in popular areas, and to try and walk or cycle to outdoor areas.

The letter said: “It might be that on occasions those working hard to keep these spaces open will ask people to move on as areas are getting too crowded, please respect that and be kind in your response as they are only doing their job to keep open spaces safe. We ask you to support us so we don’t risk losing these opportunities.”

Elsewhere in the UK, visitors to the South Downs national park have been advised to stick to the path, keep their dogs on their lead and take their litter home, while much further north people are being warned not to “rush back” to the Lake District.

Other authorities will be keeping car parks closed and will not be reopening tennis courts or golf courses immediately to avoid crowds of visitors congregating.

More than £10,000 has been raised for the family of a railway ticket office worker who died with coronavirus after being spat at while on duty.

Belly Mujinga, who had an 11-year-old daughter, was on the concourse of Victoria station in London when a member of the public who said he had Covid-19 spat and coughed at her and a colleague.

Both women fell ill with the virus, and Mujinga died in hospital in Barnet 11 days after the attack on 5 April.

A fundraising page for Mujinga’s family has surpassed its £1,000 target and stood at £10,560 on Wednesday morning.

The attack on Mujinga, who had underlying respiratory problems, was widely condemned, with Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) general secretary, Manuel Cortes, saying he was “shocked and devastated” at the death.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “It is despicable for a key worker to be attacked in this way while serving the travelling public.”

Mujinga’s husband, Lusamba Gode Katalay, described how the suspect walked up to her and spat in her face on 22 March.

“The man asked her what she was doing, why she was there, and she said they were working. The man said he had the virus and spat on them. They reported it.”

Within a week of the incident, she began to feel ill and was admitted to hospital on 2 April. He said:

That was the last time I saw her. We just said: ‘Be good,’ and that God is in charge.

We did a WhatsApp video in hospital, but then I didn’t hear from her again.

I thought she might be asleep, but the doctor phoned me to tell me she had died.

Good morning, this is Jessica Murray, I’ll be leading the UK live blog for the next few hours, on the first day coronavirus lockdown restrictions are being eased – in varying ways – around the country.

From today in England, people are allowed unlimited exercise outside, with limited socialising in open spaces, and businesses are encouraged to reopen.

But the rules aren’t being relaxed to the same degree in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: here’s how the lockdown now differs across the UK.

Breaking news this morning has revealed the UK economy suffered its worst contraction since the depths of the financial crisis due to Covid-19.

Britain’s economy shrank by 2% in the first three months of 2020, new figures released by the Office for National Statistics show, the worst fall since the end of 2008 at the height of the financial crisis.

Business live will be following the economic implications closely throughout the day.

As always, please do get in touch with your suggestions and experiences as we move through the day:

Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_