Nicola Sturgeon has announced a nationwide ban on drinking indoors in licensed premises in Scotland for more than two weeks, with a full shutdown of all premises across the central belt where infection rates are accelerating most rapidly. Here is a guide to the new rules.
Boris Johnson must set out the scientific evidence behind the introduction of further lockdown measures in England, Keir Starmer has said, hinting his party could vote against implementing the 10pm hospitality curfew if the government fails to provide further evidence. England’s poorest communities are nearly four times as likely to face lockdown restrictions as the wealthiest areas, a Guardian analysis has found, as local leaders warned of a “winter of dangerous discontent” in the north of England without urgent financial support. More than £10m is being spent on a network of NHS clinics across England for people with “long Covid”. David Frost, the government’s chief Brexit negotiator, has hinted that the UK is now willing to agree to robust joint rules with the EU covering state aid. This has been seen as the key obstacle to a trade deal, because the UK government has been resistant to an agreement that would significantly constrain its state aid policy in the future. But today, in evidence to a Lords committee, Frost said he could imagine a situation where the UK would welcome a robust dispute resolution mechanism - because it would want to use it against the EU. (See 5.55pm.) Giving evidence to a committee of MPs later he said: The point I was trying to make on state aid is that whatever the final agreement, whatever the form of dispute settlement on subsidies, I could imagine we would be at least as assiduous users of it as the EU would be. He also said that he thought the two sides might be able to reach agreement on this within the next two weeks. He said: The EU in its text in March this year did not want to make certain aspects sensitive to it subject to [state aid] arbitration. We are likely to do the same. And I think what we’re trying to do in the next couple of weeks is find a balance between those two things. During the same hearing Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, put the chances of a deal at 60/40. And Frost said fisheries was now the most difficult issue between the two sides to resolve. These are from my colleague Lisa O’Carroll.
Boris Johnson is prepared to make a major compromise to secure security ties with the EU by pledging in a deal on the future relationship not to rip up the Human Rights Act, my colleague Daniel Boffey reports. That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.