Boris Johnson has said the government wants to avoid the introduction of COVID vaccine passports in England “if we possibly can”, but added they would be an option to be kept “in reserve”.
The prime minister, who will on Tuesday set out his plan to deal with coronavirus during the upcoming autumn and winter months, said he would “do everything that’s right to protect the country”.
Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said, under those plans, that a negative coronavirus test would “no longer be sufficient proof” that a person was COVID-safe.
However, both Mr Javid and now Mr Johnson have admitted they could yet be an option in future months.
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Ahead of a news conference on Tuesday – at which he will appear alongside England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty and the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance – the prime minister said he would be “giving a full update on the plans for the autumn and winter”.
Asked about the possible introduction of vaccine passports during a visit to a British Gas training academy in Leicestershire on Monday, Mr Johnson added: “What we want to do is avoid vaccine passports if we possibly can, and that’s the course we’re on.
“But I think you’ve got to be prudent, and you’ve got to keep things in reserve in case things change.”
The prime minister also declined to rule out the prospect of another lockdown this winter.
“We’ve got to do everything that’s right to protect the country,” he said. “But the way things are going at the moment, we’re very confident in the steps that we’ve taken.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said on Monday the use of COVID vaccine passports “should never prevent people getting essential services”.
He added they could “possibly” be used for “some events” but should be used “in conjunction with tests”, so that people had an alternative option to prove their COVID status.
“There should always be an alternative – either double vaccination or a negative test,” Sir Keir said.
Asked whether he would endorse another lockdown, the Labour leader said the best way to avoid one was to “go cautiously and to continue with practical measures like masks on public transport and enclosed spaces”.
The Scottish government is persisting with plans to introduce the use of COVID vaccine passports for over-18s – without the alternative of a negative test result – for attendance at venues such as nightclubs or indoor seated events of 500 or more attendees, unseated outdoor live events with more than 4,000 people in the audience and “any event, of any nature, which has more than 10,000 people in attendance”.
Speaking at the SNP’s conference on Monday, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon suggested the measure could prevent further restrictions being implemented.
“All of these basic mitigations make a difference,” she said.
“So too will the limited system of vaccine certification approved by parliament last week. I hope it won’t be necessary for long.
“But if the simple act of showing that we’ve been vaccinated helps keep businesses open and our lives free of restrictions, then I believe it will be worth it.”
Rishi Sunak has been criticised for announcing a “surprise” round of honours – including a knighthood for a major donor to the Conservative Party.
It was announced on the Thursday before the Easter bank holiday weekend that Mohamed Mansour was being knighted for business, charity and political service – he had given £5m to the Tories in 2023 and is a senior treasurer at the party.
A number of Conservative MPs were also made knights and dames.
Labour’s chair, Anneliese Dodds, said Mr Sunak‘s nominations were “either the arrogant act of an entitled man who’s stopped caring what the public thinks, or the demob-happy self-indulgence of someone who doesn’t expect to be prime minister much longer”.
Asked by Sky News if Labour would rule out giving donors honours if they were in government, Ms Dodds said giving money should not be an “automatic pass”.
Following the announcement, Mr Mansour said: “This award is the greatest honour of my life. I am thrilled and hugely grateful.
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“This award would have meant so much to my father and mother. I wish they could have lived to see this day. This honour is for them, for the values they taught my siblings and I and for everything they did for us.”
Downing Street sources highlighted Mr Mansour’s work supporting charities – including financially backing a memorial to those who died due to COVID.
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Speaking to Sky News, Conservative peer and polling expert Lord Robert Haywood said the public would be “unhappy” with the move.
While some non-political figures – like director Christopher Nolan – were also knighted, it’s the political acts that will draw attention.
Lord Haywood said: “I think people don’t like it, there’s no question about that.
“The problem is that you’ve got people who are genuine philanthropists who also give money to a political party, and that’s where the line isn’t differentiated.”
He added that he was “really surprised” by the timing of the list – but it probably doesn’t say anything about the timing of a general election.
Normally, honours are granted at New Year’s on the monarch’s birthday, or after the resignation of a prime minister, although this is a convention not a rule.
The timing of the announcement, while parliament is in recess, has also raised eyebrows – although sources suggested the timing was linked to the need to make appointments to the Privy Council, including the new Welsh First Minister Vaughan Gething.
Tory MP Philip Davies was one of the Conservative MPs to be made knight. He is known for hosting a television show on GB News with his wife, fellow Conservative MP and minister Esther McVey.
Sir Keir Starmer has warned that Labour “can’t pretend that we can turn the taps on” to help struggling councils if he wins the next general election.
The Labour leader was speaking in Dudley at the launch of his party’s campaign for the local elections on 2 May, which are taking place against the backdrop of a bleak financial picture for councils across the country.
One in five council bosses have said they think it’s likely or fairly likely they will go bankrupt in the next 15 months, while the Local Government Association, which represents local authorities, has said there is a £4bn funding shortfall over the next two years.
Asked by Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby whether he would “commit that money”, Sir Keir replied: “Councils of all political stripes are struggling with the lack of funding they’ve had over a prolonged period.
“And we need to turn that around – we will do that.”
Although he did not promise additional funding, he did suggest funding settlement arrangements could be altered to help councils – suggesting one-year settlements had been detrimental to councils’ budgets.
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“I think there is scope for different kinds of funding settlements,” he said.
“Talk to any council leader and they’ll say the one-year settlements are very difficult for us because we can’t spend money effectively and as well as we should.
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“So it’s hard because there isn’t enough money. It’s even harder because it’s a one-year settlement. We can change that around with a three-year settlement.”
The shadow hanging over Labour policies is the dire state of public finances
While Sir Keir Starmer’s local election launch contained little new in the way of policy, it was still one of the clearest outlines of what drives the Labour leader as a politician and what would propel him in government.
Put simply – it is about restoring pride in the places people live and injecting a sense of integrity back into the workforces of those areas.
In a theme we’ll likely see returned to throughout the general election campaign, Sir Keir used the language of football to sketch this out – referring to the Potters of Stoke, the Glassboys of Stourbridge and the Hatters of Stockport.
Pride of place linked with the integrity of work given form through the plain-speaking language of football.
None of these identified problems are new.
This is the well of angst that lay behind the Brexit vote. This is the concept of ‘left behind’ communities Theresa May vowed to address. This is the problem to be solved through Boris Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ agenda.
So why should voters believe that this leader will prevail when so many others have failed? On this, there is still a considerable blank space. The answer being given today is devolution.
If local people are given more power over how to spend their money, this argument goes, they will spend it better and waste less.
The shadow hanging over all this is the dire state of the public finances. Or to put it another way, what many places need is cold hard cash.
The fiscal constraints Labour appears to be wrapping around itself means that money is not there though. Squaring that circle will be the central tension within both this local election campaign and the coming race for Downing Street.
He added: “I can’t pretend that we can turn the taps on, pretend the damage hasn’t been done to the economy. It has. The way out of that is to grow our economy.”
In Birmingham, where the Labour-run local authority declared bankruptcy after being hit with a £760m bill to settle equal pay claims, council tax will rise by 21% over the next two years while £300m in cuts will be brought in over the same period.
At the campaign launch, Sir Keir said it was “unforgivable” the Tories did not follow through on their pledge to level up left-behind areas of the UK and said he had hoped to launch “a different election campaign here today” but could not because the “prime minister bottled it”.
The Labour leader said Rishi Sunak wanted “one last drawn-out summer tour with his beloved helicopter” and added: “We need to send him another message, show his party once again that their time is up, the dithering must stop, the date must be set.”
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt claimed Labour’s local election launch was a “smokescreen” and that when it was in office the party “devolved no powers to local authorities”.
Sir Keir Starmer has admitted Boris Johnson was “right” to propose levelling up but said he was “frustrated” by the former prime minister’s “unforgivable” failure to deliver.
The Labour leader also claimed the policy, which defined Mr Johnson’s premiership, was “strangled at birth” by his successor, Rishi Sunak.
Speaking to Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby at the launch of Labour’s local election campaign in Dudley, Sir Keir said “the idea” of levelling up that was put before the electorate in 2019 by Mr Johnson was “right”.
But he added: “What that requires – and this is where I get frustrated – is if you really believe that… I’m afraid you’ve got to roll your sleeves up, you’ve got to put a plan on the table, you go the hard yards.
“And so what is unforgivable about Boris Johnson is, having made that the focus, he didn’t do the hard yards of delivery and that’s why people feel even more let down.”
The Labour leader was equally critical of Mr Sunak, whom he said had “strangled levelling up at birth because he wouldn’t put the funding behind it – and we know what the consequences are.”
However, despite criticising the Conservatives for their failure to put money behind the policy, Sir Keir refused to commit any new funding to local councils, which are straddling an estimated funding gap of £4bn over the next two years.
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Starmer pushed on council funding crisis
He told Rigby his party “can’t turn on the spending taps” for cash-strapped local authorities but that funding settlements could be made longer to provide more stability.
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“If we stabilise the economy, that will reduce inflation,” he said. “That’s been a big drag for councils.”
Another change Sir Keir put forward was a ban on no-fault evictions, which he said added to the “strain” on councils which then have to find alternative accommodation.
The ban on no-fault evictions is one of a number of measures that have been held up in the long-delayed Renters Reform Bill, which Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, has been accused of watering down to appease sceptical backbenchers.
But Mr Gove said the Labour leader “couldn’t be more wrong” with his assessment of the government’s record.
“We are the party that’s been leading on levelling up for years now,” he said.
“The areas of the country in the Midlands and the North that Labour neglected for decades have had an infusion of cash and a power surge thanks to this Conservative government.
“We’re the people who’ve given power to mayors in the Tees Valley and in the West Midlands, who’ve had a decisive impact on raising wages, levering in investment, empowering local communities.
“Labour are late to this game and also they come with nothing new to say. No new money, no new powers, no plan at all.”