Homeless people in England are going to be prioritised for the vaccine, the government has announced. (See 4.36pm and 5.14pm.) Keir Starmer has attacked the SNP for focusing on the “wrong debate” by demanding Scottish independence, but conceded the UK must “change to survive”, as Labour gears up for the May elections.
Dead women is something society has “just accepted as part of our daily lives”, MPs heard, as almost 120 victims were remembered in the House of Commons. As PA Media reports, MPs listened in silence as Labour’s Jess Phillips read out the names of women killed in the UK where a man has been convicted or charged as the primary perpetrator. Phillips spent more than four minutes listing the names of the victims from the last 12 months. After finishing the list, Phillips added people had “prayed that the name of Sarah Everard would never be on any list” and urged everyone to work to ensure “nobody’s name ends up on this list again”.
The government has been forced to delay the introduction of import checks by six months, in a major U-turn of post-Brexit policy, because a network of 30 border posts being built to process incoming goods would not have been ready on time. The UK’s economic recovery will be investment-led and will not need more consumer incentives like the Eat Out to Help Scheme to recover, Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has said. Giving evidence to the Commons Treasury committee he said he expected the levels of pent-up demand built up during the pandemic to be enough to trigger a recovery in consumer spending. As PA Media reports, experts predict middle and high income households have saved a combined £180bn since the pandemic and expect to spend at least 5%, or £9bn, when restrictions ease. Sunak told the committee: I think we probably now have higher confidence that there will be consumption-led recovery even without intervention... Consumer confidence is at different levels and there’s actually a lot of pent-up desire. Investment is different and has really suffered. It’s down 20% year on year and unlocking that is probably something where policy can make a real difference. Three-quarters of British manufacturers are struggling to cope with delays in moving goods in and out of the EU amid continuing disruption caused by Brexit and the Covid pandemic, industry figures said. Delaying the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine must be urgently reviewed for cancer patients after a single shot was found to offer inadequate protection, researchers have said. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has issued a statement saying people should continue to take the AstraZeneca vaccine - even though the Danish, Norwegian and and Icelandic authorities have temporarily suspended its use because of concerns about blood clots. The MHRA says it has not been confirmed the blood clot in Denmark was caused by the vaccine. That’s all from me for today. But our coronavirus coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.