Anthony Costello, a paediatrician, former World Health Organization director and member of Independent Sage (a group of scientists critical of the government’s approach), has criticised Boris Johnson’s responses to questions about test and trace. (See 5.45pm.)

Johnson is wrapping up now.

He says he must “alas” ask people to stay at home and save lives.

And that’s it.

Q: More than 1.2 million people are waiting for an NHS test. But the NHS is short of testing equipment. Will it get more resources?

Johnson says the pressure on the NHS caused by Covid has affected other NHS services. But he says he announced more funding for the NHS just before Covid began. You need staff too, he says. He is recruiting more nurses, he says.

Stevens says the NHS needs to substantially expand its diagnostic capacity. It won’t just put them in hospitals. It wants to have them on the high street too, to expand accessibility.

In the summer there were predictions that the waiting list could reach 10m, he says. But he says that is now not the case, because of the work done in tackling the backlog.

He says, if there is one silver lining, it is that NHS staff have inspired a new generation to join up. The intake of student nurses this autumn is the biggest ever, he says.

Q: Wouldn’t it be better to spend the money going on NHS test and trace on contact tracing by local public health officials instead?

Johnson says he understands people’s frustrations with it. But they are improving rapidly at the moment, he says. (See 11.55am.)

He says he does not accept that it has had no effect. It has not been as effective as people might like. But it has helped identify where the disease is, which has helped to control it, he says.

Mass testing is full of promise, he says. It offers “a real way forward”.

He says getting people to self-isolate when they need to has been a real problem.

Stevens says there are three lines of defence: social distancing; test and trace; and what happens in hospitals.

Having tests that pick up asymptomatic cases (as mass testing should) should make a difference, he says.

Q: What is your response to concerns about the data presented by government? (See 4.11pm.)

Johnson says the government is happy to share the data it has.

He says some facts are irrefutable. He quotes figures for the increase in hospital cases.

Q: Won’t we have to live with restrictions for some time?

Stevens says the NHS is prepared for coronavirus.

Q: Can you get Tory MPs to vote for further restrictions if needed on 2 December?

Johnson says he has “every confidence” that the measures announced for November will work.

Q: Your own MPs say they won’t support you.

Johnson says he was very grateful for their support yesterday. He says the government could have won with its own votes.

He thinks, as a result of technical advances, we will be in a different situation then.

Q: What do you say to people who lost their jobs before you extended furlough?

Johnson says it has been one of the most generous and imaginative schemes applied. It has been extended exactly to provide that certainty.

He says it was right to try alternative approaches while the R was suppressed.

Q: Was the lockdown eased too quickly?

Stevens says there was a substantial reduction in numbers over the summer. The NHS used that time to catch up. But, when the facts change, you have to change approach, he says.

Q: What consideration has been given to the prospect that vaccines might have only a limited effect?

Johnson says there is a “tripod” of medical interventions: treatments, vaccines, and testing.

He says the Liverpool mass testing experiment has been seen nowhere else in the world, apart from in Slovakia.

He says results will be available immediately.

That means people can be told to isolate if they are positive. If they are negative, they can behave in a more normal way.

He says the “number of shots raining down on goal” from the scientists is considerable, and some will get through.

Stevens says some of the vaccines likely to come through most quickly are some of the cleverest.

The more conventional ones will come on stream next year, he says.

The first question comes from a member of the public who wants to know why outside football has been banned.

Johnson says he would love to allow this to continue.

But it is just 28 days, he says.

Stevens says the NHS needs our help too.

There is a slogan “protect us to protect you”, he says. NHS staff get Covid too, he says.

He says we cannot stop cancer or heart attacks or strokes.

But we can reduce the spread of coronavirus in the community, and that is what we need to do.

Stevens says new treatments are available.

For some patients, death rates in hospital have halved.

More people are getting flu vaccines. Hospitals are being expanded, and systems are in place to separate Covid and non-Covid patients.

Doctors are going “hammer and tongs” to catch up with the procedures delayed during wave one, he says.

Stevens is now showing a video.

It shows that it can take up to five days for someone to get ill after being infected, between two and five days for them to get to hospital if they are seriously ill, and then between nine and 19 days for them to leave hospital, either dead or discharged.

So today’s infections are the hospital order book for two weeks’ time, he says.

Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, says he asked NHS staff what message they would like him to pass on to viewers.

First, they wanted him to say this second wave of coronavirus is real.

Second, they wanted to say the NHS has been working hard to catch up.

But, third, they wanted to say that what happened would depend on people’s behaviour.

Johnson says two thirds of homeless people who were helped during the first lockdown are still off the streets.

And he says today the government can announce it is spending a further £15m on support for rough sleepers.

Johnson says the mass testing pilot will start in Liverpool tomorrow.

And there is a very real chance of safe and effective vaccines, he says.

Johnson reads out the latest coronavirus figures.

New rules are in place from today, he says. The full rules are on the government’s website.

He says he knows how difficult this is for people. People are anxious and fed up, he says.

But this is not a repeat of the spring. The schools are staying open. And these rules are time-limited. After 2 December the government plans to move back to a tiered approach.

There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Johnson says there is a shared goal across the UK - to suppress the virus, to ensure the NHS is not overwhelmed and to save lives.

Boris Johnson is speaking now.

He says across the country people are engaged in a “huge joint effort to put the coronavirus back in its box”.

These are from Grant Shapps, the transport secretary.

Public Health England has published its weekly coronavirus surveillance report (pdf). Here is an extract from its summary.

Surveillance indicators suggest that Covid-19 activity at a national level has increased or remained high during week 44 [the week ending 1 November]. There is currently limited testing for other respiratory viruses, however, laboratory indicators suggest that influenza activity is low.

Detections of Covid-19 cases in England remained high in week 44. Case detections decreased slightly compared to last week though this is likely to be driven by reduced testing over the half term period as well as a lag in results for the most recent days. Overall positivity rates continued to increase. Incidence and positivity rates remain highest in the north of England though there are some indications that positivity is starting to decline in the north-east and north-west. By age group, cases rates were highest in the 20 to 29 year olds with decreases continuing to be noted in the 10 to 19 year olds. Positivity rates were highest in the 80+ year olds tested through both pillar 1 (NHS and PHE testing) and in the 10 to 19 year olds tested through pillar 2 (community testing).

Leading theatre producer Nica Burns has praised Rishi Sunak’s extension of the furlough scheme until March as a “major step forward” for England’s theatres. Her venues have “been given their mojo back”, she said, despite a lockdown that will keep them dark until at least the first week of December.

My colleague Chris Wiegand has the full story here.

In Northern Ireland, where a month-long lockdown started on 16 October, there have been 516 further coronavirus cases. The details are here.

That is 24% down on the total for yesterday (679), 37% down on the total for last Thursday (822), and 50% down on the total for the Thursday two weeks ago (1,042).

There have also been 12 further deaths. That is two more than yesterday, and four more than a week ago today.

The Office for Statistics Regulation has issued what amounts to a rebuke to the government for not releasing a full explanation of a controversial graph used at the press conference on Saturday, where Boris Johnson announced the English lockdown.

The graph showed that, under one worst case scenario produced by modellers, coronavirus deaths would reach 4,000 a day. The chart has been strongly criticised by Tory MPs and newspapers opposed to the lockdown, who argue that by the time the graph was made public the assumptions behind it were already out of date and that its use amounted to scaremongering.

In a public letter to Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, Ed Humpherson, the head of the OSR, said:

Our aim is to uphold public confidence in statistics that serve the public good. During the pandemic there have been high profile public briefings, media interviews and statements in each of the four nations of the UK. These have rightly drawn on data and analysis.

We welcome the range of data that has been published and we recognise that those producing the data and advising government face significant pressures.

However, the use of data has not always been supported by transparent information being provided in a timely manner. As a result, there is potential to confuse the public and undermine confidence in the statistics.

Humpherson said that in future when data is presented in public, the source should be published; that when models are referred to, the “model outputs, methodologies and key assumptions” should be published; and that when key decisions are justified by statistics, the statistics should be published.

Here is the controversial slide.

Earlier this week the government did publish various papers explaining the methodology behind the slides used at the press conference.

Public Health Wales has recorded 1,272 more coronavirus cases. Although that is 70 more than the total for yesterday, it is below the total for last Thursday (1,375), which may be a sign the Welsh lockdown is having an impact.

But there have been 30 further deaths - up from 21 a week ago today, and seven two weeks ago today. Because people who do die from coronavirus tend to die three to four weeks after infection, the Welsh lockdown, which started on 23 October, was not expected to have an impact on these figures yet.

Kate Forbes, the Scottish government’s finance secretary, has welcomed Rishi Sunak’s furlough announcement. She said in a statement.

I welcome the chancellor’s positive, but long overdue, announcement that the job retention scheme will be extended until March 2021. We have repeatedly urged the UK government to safeguard jobs by guaranteeing that this support will be available for as long as employers need it ...

The upfront guarantee of further consequential payments to cover the rest of the financial year meets another of our long term requests and will enable us to quickly tackle the impacts of the pandemic in Scotland as they arise. This covers consequentials arising from a number of areas including health.

Other issues remain to be resolved, including how funding is provided for demand-led business support, where demand is greater than the Barnett share, but I am pleased that the chancellor has today listened to and addressed some of our concerns.

Lives are being put at risk by universities who are insisting that students and lecturers travel to campuses for face-to-face teaching, unions have claimed.

While some large institutions have shifted large amounts of work online, pressure was being put on universities in areas such as Nottingham and Lincoln as the government said that all education should remain open during the new lockdown across England.

Dozens of students left messages on the Facebook page of the University of Lincoln after it used the site to announce a continuation of face-to-face teaching, with expressing concerns that they were being asked to commute in and out of high risk areas.

“So far this year, every time there is a f2f session, whole groups of us are being contacted by uni track and trace and made to isolate for 14 days. Can you not see that face to face isn’t safe and isn’t working? It needs to stop now,” said one.

The University and College Union (UCU) union, which has called with the National Union of Students (NUS) for a move to online activity on campuses, also expressed concern about Nottingham, where Covid infection rates remains high even while the number of infected students on campus has gone down.

The University of Nottingham, like Lincoln, has moved to put safety measure in place on campus and said on its website today: “The University will remain open as now, and continue as planned with current research activities and our blended approach to teaching - in-person where it is safe to do so, and otherwise online.”

On its website, the University of Lincoln posted a letter to students from the Universities Minister, Michelle Donelan, in which she said: “By keeping universities open, we are prioritising education so that there is no gap in your academic journeys and lives.”

From Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation thinktank

The Welsh economy minister, Ken Skates, has said businesses in Wales will have a “captive market” when they reopen on Monday following a 17-day “firebreak” lockdown.

Skates said the four-week English lockdown for non-essential shops would give Welsh businesses an advantage.

Speaking at the Welsh government’s press conference, Skates said:

Those [Welsh] businesses will have a very captive audience. People in Wales will not be able to access non-essential retail across the border in Chester or Oswestry.

Hospitality businesses, non-essential retail in Wales will have a captive market and that is something they surely will be able to celebrate for four weeks during which their equivalents in England are in lockdown.

However, Skates said co-ordinated lockdowns across the UK would have been desirable. “We were pushing for a concerted UK-wide programme of restrictions but we couldn’t wait on the UK government any longer.”

He said that if further restrictions were needed in the future, the Welsh government would prefer a four nations approach. He said he thought a UK-wide approach would be agreed.

Back in the Commons David Linden (SNP) asks Rishi Sunak why the furlough scheme is being extended to March, but support for the self-employed is only being extended until January, according to the statement. (See 12.24pm.)

Sunak says that the self-employed employment support scheme would be extended until March, but the Treasury had not decided yet how much it would be worth during that phase.

These are from my colleague Heather Stewart.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross was quick to claim his part in the U-turn, after Rishi Sunak confirmed that the furlough extension would be available to devolved nations, describing this as “a demonstration of the strength of the union”.

Ross said:

Scottish Conservative pressure has delivered. All week, we’ve made the case that Scottish jobs had to be protected at all costs. We’ve worked constructively with the UK government and pushed them for answers where necessary.

Ross praised Sunak, saying he had “blown the SNP’s grievances out of the water with an extra billion pounds for Scotland, and shown again that the UK government will do whatever it takes to support jobs throughout this pandemic.”

As the BBC’s Nick Eardley points out, the Treasury briefing (pdf) says that workers who were made redundant in advance of the planned end of the furlough scheme on 31 October can be rehired under the furlough extension.

From the FT’s George Parker

And here is a five-page Treasury briefing (pdf) with more details of the furlough announcement.

Here is the Treasury’s new release about today’s announcement.

In the Commons Christine Jardine, the Lib Dem Treasury spokesperson, has said the furlough scheme should be extended until the summer.

Sunak said that there would be a review in January, and that today’s statement covered the medium term.

Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, has given a partial welcome the the chancellor’s announcement. In a statement she said:

Agreeing to extend the job retention scheme at 80% until the spring, as unions have called for, is a positive step.

But there are still gaps in the government’s support package.

It’s not right to ask millions of low-paid workers on furlough to survive on less than the minimum wage. The Chancellor must fix the scheme so their pay is topped up to 100%.

And he must offer to help to those self-employed workers who are falling between the cracks.

We also need an urgent boost to both sick pay and universal credit. No-one should be plunged into financial hardship if they have to self-isolate or if they lose their job.

Margaret Greenwood (Lab) asks why the government only made job support more generous when people in the south of England were affected.

Sunak says the government treats everyone the same. He says it is “simply wrong” to claim that people in the north were treated less generously.

Alison Thewliss, the SNP’s Treasury spokesperson, says she has been calling for these measures for months. She says the Treasury only responded when England was under threat.

Can Sunak confirm that furlough will be maintained at 80%, and not tied to any sector?

There is nothing for the self-employed, she says.

Sunak says Scotland will receive an extra £1bn in upfront funding. It will be for the Scottish government to decide how it uses that, he says.

He says the Scottish government has the power to raise taxes. If it considers these measures important, it could raise funds for them, he suggests.

Mel Stride, the Tory chair of the Commons Treasury committee, asks if the Treasury will publish its analysis of the economic impact of lockdown.

Sunak says there is not a specific report on this. But the Treasury has looked at the economic impact, he says.

From the Independent’s Ben Chu

Dodds says the government will not accept that, until it deals with the health crisis, it won’t be able to deal with the economic crisis.

Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, is responding to Sunak.

She says Labour asked for a short lockdown weeks ago.

Sunak implied in his statement the government was only warned about the need for a lockdown last week.

But in fact Sage advised the government this was needed in September, she says.

She says the country needs a chancellor ahead of circumstances - not behind them.

She says the Welsh government asked for measures that would support their lockdown. The chancellor said no.

Scotland asked for a promise that the Treasury would fund further lockdowns. Sunak said no. But the PM said yes, requiring Sunak to back down, Dodds says.

Sunak says the government thought it would be able to stay ahead of the virus.

Over the summer it came up with policies to support an economy that would remain open.

The plan had wide-ranging support, he says. The CBI and the TUC were in favour.

But the virus continued to spread. The government intensified its business support programme in response.

But the government then had to tighten restrictions. That affected businesses. As a result the job support scheme was beefed up.

The virus continued to spread, he says. Last week ministers were warned the NHS might be overwhelmed within weeks.

To protect the NHS, new temporary restrictions were necessary.

Sunak says that is why he decided to extend the furlough scheme, rather than move to the new job support scheme (the less version intended to replace it).

He says he has been criticised for this. But it is best to respond to evolving circumstances, he says.

He says he will leave it to others to decide if it was right to alter economic policy as circumstances changed.

But he knows that he is supporting business, he says.

Sunak says the government has also spent £200bn on Covid measures.

Today’s announcement follows the one from the Bank of England this morning, he says.

There is a summary here.

Rishi Sunak starts by summing up some of the job and business measures already introduced.

Tom Bower’s new biography of Boris Johnson has had some rather poor reviews but it has at least prompted Rory Stewart, the former Conservative cabinet minister and a leadership candidate in the contest that Johnson won, to write a superb and blistering essay about his former ministerial colleague. Here’s an excerpt on Johnson’s mastery of dishonest, but do read the whole thing in the Times Literary Supplement.

Johnson is after all the most accomplished liar in public life – perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister. Some of this may have been a natural talent – but a lifetime of practice and study has allowed him to uncover new possibilities which go well beyond all the classifications of dishonesty attempted by classical theorists like St Augustine. He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie, and the bullshit lie – which may inadvertently be true. And because he has been so famous for this skill for so long, he can use his reputation to ascend to new levels of playful paradox. Thus he could say to me “Rory, don’t believe anything I am about to say, but I would like you to be in my cabinet” – and still have me laugh in admiration.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, told the Today programme this morning that he expected the government to ease its ban on collective worship during the lockdown in England. He said:

I think it will be changed.

I think the evidence we’ve seen over the last couple of days is that this particular aspect of the decision by the government is not supported by any scientific evidence and clearly shows a misunderstanding of the importance of religious faith.

I think those things will lead to change. As soon as possible, I hope to see places of worship opened again [for services].

In the Commons yesterday Matt Hancock, the health secretary, hinted that the rules could be changed soon.

In the Commons Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, has been taking questions. Asked by his Labour opposite number Jo Stevens when live performances would be allowed to return, he said he could not give a date. He said:

Once we’re through this lockdown period I very much hope that socially distanced performances will be able to return ...

At the moment I hope she’ll appreciate, given the wider context, it’s very difficult to give an accurate date - as soon as we can I want to be able to do that.

But Dowden confirmed rehearsals for productions “can continue behind closed doors” during the new lockdown.

The number of coronavirus cases in London was slightly falling in the final week of October, compared to the previous week, according to the latest figures from the mayor’s office. This is from Sadiq Khan.

And here’s an extract.

In the most recent week of complete data, 24 October 2020 - 30 October 2020, 13,103 people tested positive in London, a rate of 146 cases per 100,000 population. This compares with 13,650 cases and a rate of 152 for the previous week.

For England as a whole there were 229 cases per 100,000 population for the week ending 30 October 2020.