A winter lockdown has been ruled out by the Business Secretary despite his "concerns" over a slow booster rollout.

       The NHS Confederation last night urged the Government to introduce its 'Plan B' strategy, which would involve measures such as mandatory face coverings and a return to working from home.

       Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, said the Government was "concerned" about the slow uptake of booster jabs in light of rising Covid cases.

       But ruling out further lockdowns, Mr Kwarteng said that ministers "don't want to go back into further restrictions" and noted there were no vaccines this time last year.

       "I think the conversation about restrictions on travel, restrictions on more lockdowns is completely unhelpful," he told Sky News. "The vaccine has changed our total approach to this and has given us a measure of security that is very important. I would rule [lockdowns] out.

       "As the Health Secretary said it’s something we’re going to have to live with and I think we are managing the situation."

       A total of 43,738 positive tests were recorded yesterday, a 16 per cent week-on-week increase. A further 223 deaths were registered, the highest single-day reported figure since March.

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       Industry leaders are warning that pub and restaurant prices are facing "terrifying" price rises because of a chronic shortage of workers, writes Bill Gardner.

       Ian Wright, the chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation, told MPs that inflation in the hospitality sector was running at up to 18 per cent as businesses faced soaring wage, energy and commodity costs.

       It came as haulage bosses said the national lorry driver shortage was "not visibly getting better" and could take around a year to recover.

       Mr Wright told the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy committee: "In hospitality, which is a precursor of retail, inflation is running between 14 per cent and 18 per cent. That is terrifying.

       "I remember inflation going to 27 per cent under the Callaghan government in 1977, and I remember a lady going around Sainsbury's with stickers twice in the same hour to change the prices. We cannot go back to that."

       Read more: Costs of rampant inflation likely to pass to consumers

       Only a few months ago, Britain was being lauded as a world leader in a vaccination programme that MPs described as “one of the most stunning scientific achievements in history”, Gordon Rayner recalls.

       The jabs juggernaut was averaging more than 600,000 inoculations per day on a seemingly unstoppable journey to protecting the whole population.

       In recent weeks, however, the foot has come off the gas and the coronavirus vaccine programme is managing just 200,000 shots per day, despite the urgent need for boosters.

       The NHS is blaming the public, saying take-up of boosters is sluggish. GPs are blaming the NHS. Politicians are blaming each other. Boris Johnson is “upset” and has demanded answers from ministers.

       One thing that is indisputable is that the NHS and the Government have stopped doing what they did so well when the rollout was at its peak in the spring.

       The wheels have fallen off - and the blame game has begun

       Mask wearing, working from home and a ban on indoor gatherings must return, an NHS leader has warned.

       Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, has warned ministers must immediately enforce "Plan B" coronavirus restrictions or "risk stumbling into a winter crisis".

       Amid rising Covid-19 cases, he has urged the Government to implement the back-up strategy which involves measures including bringing back mandatory face coverings in public places.

       Talking to the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Taylor said action was needed, including: "Mask wearing in crowded places, I think avoiding unnecessary indoor gatherings, I think working from home if you can.

       "I say I don't underestimate that these are inconveniences, but we have to make a choice if we can see what is almost inevitable down the line."

       Gareth Davies, our Breaking News Editor, has this report

       Mr Harper went on to brand the ambush of Michael Gove by anti-vaccine protesters as "completely unacceptable".

       "Fortunately Michael Gove is absolutely fine, and I thought the police were fantastic, they rapidly came to his aid and ensured he was able to carry on getting about his business. Harassing ministers like that isn't going to win anyone over to their cause, it's not acceptable, and it shouldn't happen again."

       Mark Harper, the Tory MP and chairman of the Covid Recovery Group, branded calls from the NHS Confederation to reimpose restrictions as "not very sensible".

       "It's very interesting if you look at the facts," he said. "It is true that case rates are high, that is almost entirely driven by Covid circulating among children. One of the things fortunately we know about children is they're very unlikely to be seriously ill and almost none of them die from Covid.

       "There are fewer patients in hospital with Covid now than there were a month ago. I think the NHS Confederation is just not being very sensible here. We've looked at what's happened when we put people off seeing the NHS. The reason the NHS is under pressure now is it's all those people who didn't seek treatment last year, and they've now discovered they've got illnesses like cancer, untreated heart disease [and] strokes that weren't properly treated."

       In an interview with TalkRadio, Mr Harper added that he does not feel there is a sufficient level of parliamentary scrutiny around Covid laws

       The six-month extension of the Coronavirus Act passed without a vote in the Commons yesterday, as the Deputy Speaker Dame Rosie Winterton said:"I'm afraid I fear the mood of the House is not to have a vote on this."

       Kwasi Kwarteng refuted yesterday's Treasury comments which suggested the costs of the Net Zero Strategy could fall "disproportionately" onto low-income groups.

       "I don't accept that at all. I accept lots of what they say, but I think the actual transition to electric vehicles is successful and we should be doing it more rapidly," he said (see 8.00am).

       "We need to get more charging points dotted around the country so people can feel that they can use electric vehicles across the country. I'm afraid there is still range anxiety with electric vehicles, and we're trying to spend money to combat that."

       Heat pumps will become significantly cheaper in the same way that iPhones have over the years, the Business Secretary said.

       "As we encourage heat pump manufacturing of course the unit costs will come down, as they are coming down in electric vehicles," Kwasi Kwarteng told the Today programme.

       "People will have seen that in their own lives a few years ago with things like iPhones, at the beginning they were very, very expensive. But as the private sector invests, the unit costs come down."

       Mr Kwarteng said it was "perfectly reasonable" to help people make the transition as he said there was "no mandatory imposition on the new technology", instead wanting to encourage consumers to choose green options for themselves.

       "The overwhelming comment about our Net Zero Strategy is that it was very ambitious and the most advanced of any G7 country in the world, so there's a huge amount of ambition. There are clear tramlines, clear technologies where lots of investment is not only expected, but encouraged as well."

       A new mutation of the Delta variant is unlikely to cause any major changes to Britain's Covid situation as winter approaches, Professor Sir Andrew Pollard added.

       "This new subvariant of Delta so far has not taken off. There are cases being reported and of course there are millions of new variants that will occur every day, most of them fizzle out very quickly.

       "Discovery of new variants is of course important to monitor but it doesn't indicate that that new variant is going to be the next one to replace Delta. And even if it does, Delta is very good at spreading in a vaccinated population. And a new one may be a bit better but it's unlikely to change the picture dramatically."

       Prof Pollard conceded there are "marginal differences" between the efficacy of the Pfizer and Oxford vaccines, but insisted the focus should be on a booster programme that is 'de-risking' the future.

       He said transmission in young adults "will actually extend their immunity even further".

       The head of the Oxford Vaccine Group has said there is an issue around Covid data as it can sometimes include people admitted to hospital for other reasons.

       Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, a developer of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, said the Government was doing "the right thing" with the rollout of booster jabs.

       "If we look at the current status of where we are it's actually very different from last year. We do have transmission in the community but that's largely among an unvaccinated population. If you look at the people who are in hospital it's an enormously different pattern from before.

       "The daily reporting is picking up a lot of people who were admitted to hospital for other reasons but have been positive in the last month. If someone's admitted for appendicitis or a road traffic accident and they're positive, they will appear in the daily numbers and certainly with the deaths."

       Prof Pollard added the most critically ill patients are largely unvaccinated and immunocompromised people.

       Only a third of eligible 75-to-79-year-olds have had their booster jab to date, NHS England has said, which falls to 15 per cent among 70-to-75 year-olds.

       There are "huge incentives" for consumers to go green despite the increased short-term costs of eco-friendly measures, the Business Secretary has said.

       Kwasi Kwarteng insisted there was a "fine line" between the Net Zero Strategy, which was published yesterday, and "forcing people" to make a transition too soon.

       Mr Kwarteng told Sky News: "What the strategy says and what it’s trying to do, it’s trying to attract huge amounts of private investment into the UK.

       "And what happens to private investment is that the unit cost of the energy is lowered, it’s cheaper. With heat pumps we've got boiler upgrade grants, we've got huge incentives for people to make that transition.

       On gas boilers, he admitted that replacing them can be "very costly" and added: "What we want to do is keep people with us on the transition, on the journey."

       The Treasury suggested yesterday that more taxes may be needed, in addition to "new sources of revenue", to combat the impact of green schemes on the public purse and reach net zero.

       Talk of further lockdowns and travel bans to curb rising Covid cases is "completely unhelpful", Kwasi Kwarteng said this morning.

       The NHS Confederation last night urged the Government to introduce its 'Plan B' strategy, which would involve measures such as mandatory face coverings and a return to working from home.

       But the Business Secretary ruled out further lockdowns and said ministers "don't want to go back into further restrictions", noting there were no vaccines this time last year as England went into its second lockdown.

       "I think the conversation about restrictions on travel, restrictions on more lockdowns is completely unhelpful," he told Sky News. "What we want to do is manage the situation as it is.

       "The vaccine has changed our total approach to this and has given us a measure of security that is very important. I would rule [lockdowns] out. As the Health Secretary said, it’s something we’re going to have to live with and I think we are managing the situation"

       The Government is "concerned" about the slow uptake of booster jabs in light of rising coronavirus cases, the Business Secretary has said.

       Kwasi Kwarteng called for the roll-out of third vaccine doses to be stepped up amid concerns about waning immunity among the most vulnerable.

       "It’s a situation that we’re concerned about," Mr Kwarteng told Sky News. "But you’ll remember at the beginning of the year, we had hundreds if not thousands of deaths a day, and mercifully that hasn't happened.

       "I think we just have to push the message. We did a good job in encouraging people who were reluctant to take up the vaccination and that is what I think we will be doing to drive up uptake."

       Mr Kwarteng insisted the current roll-out is working, but admitted it needs to be "faster" in settings such as secondary schools, where as many as nine in ten pupils are currently unvaccinated.

       The Business Secretary has ruled out a winter lockdown despite his "concerns" over the slow uptake of booster jabs as NHS chiefs call for the Government to introduce 'Plan B'.

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