And the number of Covid patients in hospital in England stood at 26,467 as of 8am on 5 January, according to the latest figures from NHS England show. This is down slightly on yesterday’s record total of 26,626, but is a week-on-week increase of 21%.

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has called on parliament to vote through more support for small businesses across England. Speaking on a special coronavirus broadcast for BBC News, he said:

I would call on parliament to bring about a vote as soon as possible on this issue because it just can’t be left like this where you have so many people up and down the country - small business people, in many ways the backbone of the economy - just completely written out of the public support schemes.

Johnson winds up by thanking people and by saying it will be a “tough” final stretch. He says “alas” it has been made worse by the new variant.

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

I’ll post a summary soon.

Q: Do you regret letting 3 million children mix in school yesterday?

Johnson says he wanted to do everything he could to make it possible. “Alas” yesterday the data showed it was not going to be possible.

Q: Should phone companies be charging children to use data to access educational websites online?

Johnson says the government is looking at this point.

Unquestionably it will be a tough period, he says.

Q: Is the government going to introduce pre-flight Covid tests for people flying into the UK? And why has it taken so long to do this? And if we are doing this for foreign nationals, why not UK nationals too?

Johnson says the government will bring in measures to test people coming into this country.

Q: Shouldn’t teachers be on the vaccine priority list?

Whitty says there is no evidence that the new variant is more dangerous for children. He says it is not true that hospitals are filling up with children (as some people have claimed).

He says the vaccine priority list is designed to protect those most at risk. He says expert groups agree on this.

After the priority groups have been vaccinated, he says decisions will have to be taken about which other adults get vaccinated.

Neither of the two vaccines approved so far are licensed for children, he says.

Q: What needs to happen to make the vaccine programme a success?

Johnson says he thinks there are more than 13 million people in the top four priority group. But a huge effort will be made to get them vaccinated by mid February.

Q: Can you be sure schools will re-open before the summer holidays?

Johnson says the vaccination programme will make a real difference. He says he thinks “things really will be very different by the spring”.

Q: How worried should we be about the South African variant?

Vallance says viruses change. The changes in the UK variant make it more transmissible, but don’t seem to make it harder to deal with.

He says the changes in the South African variant create a bit more of a risk that a vaccine might not recognise it. But he suggests the effect might be minor. He says he does not think it will mean the vaccines have no effect.

Q: Can we eliminate the risk of Covid?

Whitty says he expects the risk to be greatly reduced, not eliminated totally. He says there could still be a need for some restrictions next winter.

Q: Is the vaccine rollout programme realistic?

Whitty says it is realistic, but not easy.

He says he supports the priority list drawn up by the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunology.

He says the mortality benefits will be “front-loaded”.

He says the government has followed JCVI advice, which has been backed by other scientific bodies, to delay the second dose so as to maximise the number of people who can get a first dose.

A first dose will provide a high degree of protection, he says.

Q: When did you call for a lockdown?

Whitty says the chief medical officers advised moving up to level 5 yesterday.

Vallance says the increased transmissiblity of the new variant was obviously a concern. The view from Sage (the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) was that new measures would be needed.

Q: How can people have confidence in you when on Sunday you said schools should stay open, and on Monday you announced they must close?

Johnson says the government has been looking at the new variant for some time. In the days leading up to Sunday he was hoping to see figures showing the new measures were having some impact. But it was clear that they had got to a situation where tier 4 alone would not get the virus under control. That’s why he did what he did.

He says he appreciates the frustration of teachers and parents and pupils.

He says he is glad the BBC is coming forward with a plan to show educational programmes.

And Whitty ends with a graph showing deaths. He says they are lower now than in the first wave, partly because doctors are getting better at keeping people alive now, and partly because the people who have been getting infected have been younger than in the first wave.

But deaths will go up, he says.

Whitty shows the next slides.

This one shows the the spread of the new variant.

This one shows that the number of people in hospital in England is higher than ever.

Johnson says 1.1 million people in England have been vaccinated now, and 1.3 million people across the UK.

He says more than 650,000 people over 80 have been vaccinated. That is 23% of all people over the age of 80.

That means within two or three weeks a quarter of that group will have a significant degree of immunity.

He says he wants to give the public more information about the vaccination programme. There will be another update on Thursday, and then daily updates from next Monday.

Johnson is starting now.

Commenting on today’s UK coronavirus figures (see 4.41pm), Yvonne Doyle, medical director for Public Health England, said:

The rapid rise in cases is highly concerning and will sadly mean yet more pressure on our health services in the depths of winter.

That is why if we can, we must stay at home, reduce contacts and do everything possible to break the spread of this virus.

It is by no means easy, but now more than ever we must all do our part to protect the NHS and save lives.

Northern Ireland has recorded 1,378 further coronavirus cases and 18 further deaths.

The number of new cases is below the total for yesterday (1,801), and below the total for a week ago today (1,566), but for most of December the daily number of new cases was well below 1,000. According to the dashboard, the seven-day rolling average for new cases has just started to fall following a very sharp rise in recent weeks.

YouTube has removed the official channel of talkRadio from its platform, PA Media reports. The Google-owned video sharing site has not yet commented on the incident or confirmed the reasons for taking the action. In a statement posted to Twitter, talkRadio said it was waiting for an explanation from the technology giant. However, there have been reports the takedown may be related to a breach of YouTube rules around coronavirus misinformation.

A report by academics from the University of East Anglia claims that much of the potential benefit from the November lockdown in England was lost because of excess socialising in the days before it started. The paper (pdf), which has not yet been subject to peer review, says the leak of the government plans for the lockdown was probably to blame.

The lead researcher, Prof Paul Hunter from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said:

We found that there was a clear surge in infections from a few days before to several days after the lockdown was implemented.But this surge was almost exclusively associated with tier 1 and tier 2 authorities. In tier 3, where hospitality venues were only allowed to operate as restaurants, there was no such surge ...

In tiers 1 and 2 much of the beneficial impact of the national lockdown was lost - probably because of the leak of its likely implementation several days before, leading to increased socialising in these areas before the start of lockdown.

The academics also found “no obvious benefit of the trial mass screening programme in Liverpool city”.

Public Health Wales has recorded 2,069 further coronavirus cases, and 17 more deaths.

The number of new cases is higher than the total for yesterday (1,898) but below the totals for a week ago today and two weeks ago today (2,510 and 2,161 respectively).

And the number of deaths is below totals for yesterday (25), for a week ago today (33) and for two weeks ago today (24).

The phone company Three UK has announced it will provide unlimited data upgrades to disadvantaged school children in England to help them with remote learning during the lockdown.

The firm, which is working in partnership with the Department for Education, said that, when a child does not have internet access at home, the school will be able to request free data through the DfE’s Get Help with Technology programme. Unlimited data will be applied until the end of the school year.

The average audience for Boris Johnson’s address last night on Sky News was 1.23m, according to the broadcaster’s overnight figures. The BBC audience was 15.6m. (See 11.24am.)

Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has issued a lengthy statement rebutting someone who claimed on Twitter that pictures of empty beds and corridors at one of its hospitals meant it was not under pressure.

Buckingham Palace has announced that garden parties normally staged at the palace and the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh have been cancelled in 2021, PA Media reports.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the former head of Ofsted, has suggested that Gavin Williamson should resign because of his failings as education secretary. Speaking on the World at One, Wilshaw said:

[Williamson] has got a lot wrong up to now, hasn’t he?

Asked if Williamson should resign, Wilshaw said:

He gets other people to resign - permanent secretaries and the head of Ofqual. He has got to take final accountability for what has gone on. Ministers don’t tend to resign for mistakes they have made now, in the way that they did before ...

I don’t think [the Department for Education] is being led well at the moment. If you talk to headteachers - I talk to them regularly as an ex-head - they lack confidence in leadership that they are receiving.

Boris Johnson announced the new lockdown for England last night partly because of alarming NHS figures showing the threat to hospitals from coronavirus. “Our hospitals are under more pressure from Covid than at any time since the start of the pandemic,” he said in his speech.

Here are some of the figures that illustrate the extent of the problem.

• Two NHS regions - the east of England and the south-east - are now treating twice as many Covid patients than at the height of their first wave peak in April.

• As of 8am on Monday 3,623 Covid patients were being treated in the east of England. That is more than double (116% higher) its first wave peak of 1,679 hospitalisations on 12 April.

• The number of Covid patients in hospitals in the south-east stood at 4,730 on the same day (4 January). That is a record number for the region and more than double its first-wave peak, or 102% higher than the 2,347 Covid patients treated in the region on 14 April.

• Almost 27,000 Covid patients (26,626) were being treated in English hospitals on Monday. That is the highest figure recorded to date and 40% higher than the first-wave peak.

• All but one of the English NHS regions, the north west, treated more Covid patients on at least one day in the week to 4 November than during their first-wave peak.

• London exceeded its first-wave peak for the seventh day in a row treating a new high of 6,733 Covid patients on 4 January. This compares with a high of 5,201 on 9 April, meaning the region is now treating 29% more patients than on its worst day in April.

• The Midlands and the south-west also experienced their highest-ever level of Covid patients on Monday, at 4,499 and 1,401 respectively.

About half a million private renters in the UK are behind on their payments, according to research by Citizens Advice. The figure comes from a survey that suggests 11% of all private renters are in arrears. Of those, one in four has been threatened with eviction.

Citizens Advice is calling for a ban on eviction proceedings during the lockdown. Alistair Cromwell, its acting chief executive, said:

As coronavirus restrictions once again tighten for everyone, the government must not forget the struggles of private renters. They currently face the prospect of losing their home once the eviction ban ends next week and the debt they have built up is likely to cast a long shadow over their future.

Half a million private renters remain behind on their rent, with the majority falling behind during the pandemic restrictions. Unlike people who own their homes, private tenants have had no structured way to defer payments but instead have had to try to keep up with their rent and bills as best they can in a time of great uncertainty and hardship.

Wales is set to be the big loser in the shake-up of the UK’s electoral map, with officials planning to carve away eight constituencies and hand them to England, PA Media reports.

Under proposals to make voter populations in each constituency more equal, England is set to gain 10 MPs, while Wales will lose eight and Scotland is on course to be reduced by two. Once the four national boundary reviews are completed in 2023, England is set to have 543 MPs, Wales 32 and Scotland 57.

Northern Ireland will continue to have 18 MPs in the House of Commons but some of the current boundaries could shift as part of the plans, according to the region’s boundary commission.

The boundary reviews have been formally launched today following the publication this morning of data from the Office for National Statistics about the number of registered voters in each UK constituency. Some 47.5m voters to be divided into 650 constituencies of between 69,724 and 77,062 people in size.

Yesterday Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, told Sky News that he did not accept government claims that teachers were no more at risk of getting coronavirus than anyone else. He said he had evidence that challenged this, but he did not elaborate on what it was.

The TES has now published figures obtained by the union suggesting that “Covid rates among schools staff in some areas are as much as four times the corresponding local authority average”. The finding is striking, but it is based on data from just three council areas, Leeds, Birmingham and Greenwich. Most of the local authorities approached by the union did not provide the relevant information.

The Campaign for Real Ale has said that extra grants announced by the Treasury today for hospitality and other sectors are “nowhere near enough to cover the haemorrhaging costs for pubs and breweries that don’t see any end in sight”. Nik Antona, the Camra chairman, said:

What is particularly concerning in the latest announcement has been the confusion around whether pubs will be able to operate on a level playing field with supermarkets and off licences during this lockdown – as they have been able to previously. Takeaway sales, in sealed containers, for people to take home, were a real lifeline for the trade in previous lockdowns and restricting that route to market now would be a death knell for many pubs. This will once again provide an unfair advantage to supermarkets and off-licenses that don’t face similar restrictions.

Asked about the criticism from the Catholic bishops (see 12.12pm), Sturgeon says she does not expect people to agree with every decision she has taken. But she is not taking these decisions lightly, she says. She accepts that, in banning collective acts of worship, Scotland is going further than England. But she says this would not be the first time her government has taken a more precautionary approach than England.

Sturgeon was asked about the evidence justifying this move. Addressing this point, she says the key point is that the virus spreads when people get together.

Leitch adds:

In the short history of this pandemic it has never been wrong to act hard and fast.

Sturgeon was asked if Scotland would be able to vaccinate everyone in the top four priority groups by the middle of next month, as Boris Johnson has suggested that the UK government will do for people in England. (See to 10.02am.) Sturgeon said she would like to be able to do this, but that she could not give a firm commitment to this timetable at this point because the supply of enough doses was not guaranteed.

Asked about the reports that the UK government is going to impose new checks on people flying into Britain, Sturgeon says that the Scottish government has been part of the four-nation talks on this matter and that an announcement is due shortly.

Jason Leitch, Scotland’s national clinical director, is speaking at the press conference now. He stresses that this is a global pandemic. He says 85.6m people globally have been infected, and 1.85m people have been killed.

He says the best way of comparing how countries are affected is by looking at the seven-day average for new cases per 100,000 people. The WHO says countries should try to get this figure down to 50 per 100,000.

He says Scotland’s most recent seven-day average is 215, the highest it has been for many months. Northern Ireland’s is 473, Wales’s is 476 and England’s is 518. And in some regions of England the seven-day average rate is over 1,200, he says.

Sturgeon says, without the new measures, cases in Scotland would rise “very, very sharply”.

Sturgeon is now talking about the lockdown ban on acts of worship that has been criticised by Scotland’s Catholic bishops. (See 12.12pm.

She says this is a regrettable measure, but it is essential. She says it will only be in place for as long as necessary.

Scotland’s Catholic bishops have attacked Nicola Sturgeon’s announcement that all places of worship must close during the lockdown on the Scottish mainland as “arbitrary and unfair.”

In a joint statement issued by the Roman Catholic church, they said there was no evidence that church services were hotspots for transmission.

Sturgeon said yesterday that only weddings, restricted to 5 guests, and funerals, restricted to 20 people, would be allowed for the duration of the new lockdown, which does not affect the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland. Places of worship can only otherwise be used to broadcast services.

The bishops said they were perplexed that churches had been included. They said:

No evidence has been forthcoming to justify the inclusion of places of worship as sources of infection. Without such scientific evidence these restrictions will appear to Catholics to be arbitrary and unfair. Moreover, a significant number of other sectors similarly restricted last March alongside public worship – such as construction, manufacturing and elite sports - have now been left free to continue in operation.

We also note that, in England, the essential contribution of public worship to the spiritual welfare of all citizens during this crisis has now been endorsed by the decision not to close places of worship while the Scottish government has apparently retreated from this view, causing dismay and confusion.

Scotland’s universities are expecting the return of around 250,000 students to campus will be delayed until February after the Scottish government imposed a new lockdown and closed schools on Monday.

Scottish universities had been planning the phased return of undergraduates and postgraduates, many of whom live overseas or in other parts of the UK, from 25 January but that date is now expected to be dropped.

University executives held a meeting with Scottish government civil servants this morning to discuss the implications of the new lockdown on the Scottish mainland, which is expected to last at least until the end of January.

Scottish education ministers are planning an announcement later this week. On Tuesday morning Michael Gove, the Cabinet minister, said England’s lockdown is likely to be in place until early March.

The UK government’s current policy is for students to start returning to English campuses from 25 January but University College London has defied that, asking students to stay away until 22 February at the earliest because of the rapid spread of the new Covid-19 variant in London.

Universities in Scotland have told officials they need clarity and certainty on how long the delay will last because of the complexities and logistics involved. They argue students need notice to organise or cancel travel and accommodation; practical courses like sciences or medicine require laboratory access and will need to be prioritised; there are also 6,500 students, mainly from overseas, who stayed in halls of residence over Christmas and remain on campus.

The Scottish government is also under pressure to provide emergency funding: universities face significant shortfalls if they do not receive income from halls of residence rentals and some may not be able to afford those losses.

Boris Johnson’s televised statement on new coronavirus restrictions was watched by an average audience of 15.6 million viewers on the BBC, PA Media reports. A spokeswoman for the broadcaster confirmed an average of 14.1 million people watched on BBC One on Monday evening, while an additional 1.5 million tuned in on the BBC News channel.

The president of the Royal College of Surgeons has said cancer operations may have to be cancelled because of the pressures facing hospitals. Prof Neil Mortensen told Times Radio this morning:

Over the weekend we talked about a slow-motion car crash, but I think it’s getting much worse than that now.

My colleagues in London doing ward rounds, for example, report that there are problems with staff numbers on the wards, staff numbers in theatres.

And then of course if you need to go to the intensive care unit, if the intensive care unit is full of Covid patients, there’s no room for you.

So it’s a really serious situation and, obviously, the less-priority operations have already stopped in many places – hips, knees, ENT (ear nose and throat) procedures.

We’re now concerned about operations like cancer surgeries being cancelled or postponed because there just isn’t the capacity to be able to manage them.

Here is some business reaction to the announcement from the Treasury about its £4.6bn package of extra grants for firms affected by the new lockdown.

This is from Roger Barker, director of policy at the Institute of Directors.

This new grant package is welcome, and will go some way to reassuring the worst affected businesses.

We are particularly pleased the Treasury has taken on board our recommendation to increase the discretionary local authority grant fund. This policy has helped to reach those who haven’t been able to access other support. The government should be prepared to top up the fund if necessary.

The chancellor must remain wary of a spring cliff-edge in business support as the furlough scheme and other support measures unwind.

And this is from Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce.

While this immediate cash flow support for business is welcome, it is not going to be enough to save many firms. We need to see a clear support package for the whole of 2021, not just another incremental intervention.

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has welcomed the Treasury announcement, but he has said it does not go far enough. In a statement Khan said:

Clearly more help is needed – including an extension to the business rates holiday and the VAT relief scheme, targeted support for night-time economy businesses which have been forced to stay shut since March, and more support for those who are self-isolating.

I’m also urging the chancellor to act swiftly and guarantee the furlough scheme will continue to protect people’s jobs until the vaccine is rolled out widely and restrictions are lifted.

It’s scandalous that there are three million excluded self-employed people who continue to be ignored, many of whom are left facing the impact of these tougher restrictions alone.

In response to the Treasury’s announcement about a £4.6bn package of extra grants for firms affected by the new lockdown, Mel Stride, the Conservative chair of the Commons Treasury committee, said:

The additional support announced by the chancellor will be welcomed by many businesses struggling for survival. The committee will be scrutinising it very carefully.

The chancellor must not forget those who have fallen through the gaps around previous support packages as we identified in our report last summer.

Brexit checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea are forcing Sainsbury’s to fill some of its Northern Ireland supermarket shelves with Spar-branded products.

About 70 products with the Spar logo, including milk, steaks and sausages, have started appearing in Sainsbury’s stores across the region.

To avert gaps on shelves and in online offerings the chain is sourcing products from Henderson Group, a Northern Ireland food wholesaler that usually supplies Spar and Vivo stores.

The arrangement underlines supply chain pressures caused by customs checks between Northern Ireland and Britain.

England, Scotland and Wales left the European Union’s single market for goods on 31 December but Northern Ireland did not. Products containing animal parts require export health certificates in accordance with EU regulations.

“A small number of our products are temporarily unavailable for our customers in Northern Ireland while border arrangements are confirmed,” said a Sainsbury’s statement. “We were prepared for this and so our customers will find a wide range of alternative products in our stores in the meantime and we are working hard to get back to our full, usual range soon.”

Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary of state, has insisted there is no Irish Sea border and that goods flow freely. He posted this on Twitter on New Year’s day.

This is from jennyking52 in the comments.

jennyking52

05 January 2021 9:23am

@Andrew - is it true that letters of no confidence in Johnson have been sent to the 1922 committee?

The claim is made in a paragraph near the bottom of a story in today’s Financial Times (paywall). It says:

Two members of the 2019 intake said they had on Monday submitted letters of no-confidence in Mr Johnson to Graham Brady, who chairs the 1922 committee of backbench MPs that governs leadership contests. “I’m completely fed up. He just can’t lead and this can’t go on,” one said.

I can’t confirm this, but the FT is an extremely reliable paper, and the main reporters on the story are George Parker, the political editor, and Sebastian Payne, its Whitehall editor, who are both trustworthy and well informed, and so I’m sure they’re right.

But it’s important to keep this in perspective. Under Conservative party rules, 15% of Tory MPs have to submit a letter to the 1922 Committee chair for a vote of no confidence to take place. There are currently 365 of them, and so 55 MPs would have to write for the threshold to be met. There is no suggestion that anything even close to that number of letters have been submitted, or will be in the near future.

UPDATE: Incidentally, while checking the exact number of Conservative MPs, I noticed that Julian Lewis has had the whip restored. He announced this during the holiday period last week. He had the whip removed in July last year after getting elected as chair of parliament’s intelligence and security committee, defeating the preferred No 10 candidate Chris Grayling. But he says he got a letter from the chief whip before Christmas readmitting him to the parliamentary party. This might be fresh evidence that Downing Street is adopting a less confrontational tone with MPs now that Dominic Cummings is no longer in the building.

Good morning. England and Scotland have this morning entered full lockdown, joining Wales and Northern Ireland where similar lockdowns were already in place. It is not the start to 2021 that any of us would have wanted, but you can’t pretend no one saw this coming, and we have at least been here before.

Here is our overnight story on the new rules, announced by Boris Johnson in a TV address last night.

And here is our guide to the new restrictions for England.

This morning Labour is calling for clarification of what extra support will be available for workers and businesses affected by the new rules. Johnson did not cover this in his announcement last night. This is from Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor.

Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has been doing interviews this mornig, and he said Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, would be making an announcement later.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The ONS publishes its weekly death figures for England and Wales.

12.15pm: Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, holds her daily coronavirus briefing.

Politics Live is now doubling up as the UK coronavirus live blog and, given the way the Covid crisis eclipses everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we will be covering non-Covid political stories too, and when they seem more important or more interesting, they will take precedence.

Here is our global coronavirus live blog.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.