Priti Patel, the home secretary, has been accused by France’s interior minister of plotting “financial blackmail” and a violation of international maritime law in a deepening diplomatic row over efforts to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel by boat. The UK’s medicines regulator has granted emergency approval for the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines to be used as third booster shots to tackle potentially waning immunity, adding pressure on the government’s vaccination watchdog to approve a new jab programme. Health and care sector workers in England who decline to be fully vaccinated could be moved to back-office roles, a UK government minister has suggested, as a consultation on plans to mandate Covid-19 and flu vaccinations was launched. Hoarding of vaccines by wealthy western nations will result in thousands of needless deaths from Covid-19 in the world’s poorest countries every month unless urgent steps are taken to distribute jabs more fairly, Gordon Brown has said. The chancellor will decide what proportion of the £12bn annual proceeds from the health and social care levy will go to the NHS after 2025, legislation published by the government confirms. MPs who have contacted the government about constituents and others trapped in Afghanistan will not even be told what department will deal with the case until a week from now, it has emerged, despite Boris Johnson’s assurances of more rapid action. Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, has accused some universities of being more interested in “cancelling national heroes” and bureaucracy than improving the lives of students and staff, telling vice-chancellors they risk undermining public confidence in higher education. The Churchill Fellowship has rejected allegations by Boris Johnson that it has airbrushed out images of Britain’s wartime prime minister from its website in an attempt to rewrite history, saying its was proud of its association with the wartime prime minister. A senior EU lawyer has concluded that the British government was negligent in its failure to tackle customs fraud that allowed criminal gangs to flood European markets with cheap Chinese-made clothes and shoes. That’s all from me for today. But our coronavirus coverage continues on our global live blog.