“Around a million people” are currently self-isolating due to coronavirus, the care minister has confirmed ahead of a planned relaxation of testing rules.
“We don’t actually collect that data on a daily basis but it’s obvious if you look at how many people tested positive yesterday - around 215,000 - they’ll all be self-isolating. About a million people are self-isolating right now,” Gillian Keegan told Sky News.
“We get the tested positive and we get those figures, so you can add those up over the days. But obviously what we don’t know is how many people after day six and day seven have tested negative. It’s around a million people, though.”
Ms Keegan added that yesterday was a record day for home deliveries of testing kits, with 741,000 sent out yesterday.
Pressed on the recent testing difficulties, she said the current “surge in demand” amid unprecedented case rates had created a situation that was “obviously difficult”. Ms Keegan admitted some people “are waiting too long” for confirmation on whether or not they have coronavirus.
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Adult asylum seekers suspected of lying about their age could face new X-ray checks under measures unveiled by the Home Secretary today.
Priti Patel is to establish a scientific committee that will look at ways to analyse new arrivals to Britain who claim that they are under 18.
Last week, the Telegraph reported that the number of adult migrants falsely claiming to be children has more than trebled in a year to a record 1,100.
"The Borders Bill will end many of the blatant abuses that have led to our immigration and asylum system being abused," Ms Patel wrote this morning.
"We're changing UK laws to introduce new scientific methods for assessing the age of asylum seekers to stop these appalling abuses."
The North East Ambulance Service has confirmed that it asked patients with "potentially non-life threatening" calls to be taken to hospital by a friend or relative if an ambulance was delayed over the Bank Holiday.
Dr Mathew Beattie, medical director at NEAS, described the decision as "incredibly difficult" but said it formed part of the highest level of its clinical escalation plan.
Dr Beattie added: "Under normal circumstances, we would move up and down our clinical escalation levels reactively as each point is triggered or demand reduces.
"The measures we took over the bank holiday weekend were implemented because we have seen activity fluctuating dramatically with surges in demand.
"This was an incredibly difficult decision to take, but when patients are waiting an average of an hour for an ambulance that should be responding within 18 minutes, there is a risk for them coming to harm if they cannot get to hospital quickly."
Sir Keir Starmer has tested positive for coronavirus again, a Labour spokesman said.
Angela Rayner, his party's deputy leader, will deputise for him at Prime Minister's Questions at 3pm today.
It is the Labour leader's sixth time in isolation after previous Test and Trace rules meant he had to self-isolate whenever a close contact of his tested positive.
Sir Keir previously tested positive for Covid on October 27 last year, which also meant he had to miss PMQs.
Yesterday, Sir Keir set out Labour's vision for 2022 in a speech in Birmingham in which he promised to build "a new Britain" and called for the return of "decency" in public life.
Liz Truss will demand “rapid progress” to break the Northern Ireland Protocol deadlock by the end of January when she holds her first face-to-face meeting with the European Union, writes Joe Barnes.
The Foreign Secretary has invited Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission vice-president, to Chevening House, her grace-and-favour home, next week in an attempt to add impetus to the stalled talks.
Over dinner at the 17th-century venue on January 13, she will present a series of “constructive proposals” to ease the trade disruptions caused by the Brexit rules for Northern Ireland.
The pair will continue discussions the following day, with Ms Truss keen to end the row over the province in order to reset wider EU-UK relations, which have suffered as a result of the feud.
Foreign Secretary to demand 'urgent progress' during talks
At least 66 people in two boats crossed the English Channel to the UK on Tuesday, the Home Office has said. They are believed to be the first such arrivals to reach Britain in 2022.
The group, which included a handful of young children including a baby, were intercepted in the English Channel and brought into the Port of Dover on an RNLI lifeboat at about 11am.
They were brought off the lifeboat in the harbour before being taken to the immigration processing centre.
The group are thought to be the first to make the treacherous 21-mile journey this year due to a brief weather window which brought calmer conditions at sea.
About 20 others arrived later on Tuesday afternoon, brought to shore on the Border Force vessel Hurricane.
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A 60-year-old man has been charged with criminal damage following reports of an anti-vaccine protest outside Sajid Javid's London home.
A video posted online appears to show a person delivering a letter with an anti-Covid vaccine message to what they claimed was the Health Secretary's home in Fulham, south-west London.
In the footage, a man stands outside the property and addresses the camera for several minutes, saying the letter is putting the Health Secretary "personally on notice" for "harming" people in Britain with vaccines. The video then shows the man being restrained in handcuffs by police officers.
The Metropolitan Police said Geza Tarjanyi, 60, of Leyland, Lancashire, was arrested on Monday.
The force said he was due to appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, charged with having an article with intent to destroy or damage property. He was then bailed to appear at Isleworth Crown Court on Feb 1.
Read the full story here
Boris Johnson has indicated that he will not cut VAT on energy bills because it would help “a lot of people who perhaps don’t need the support” with rising living costs.
The Prime Minister on Tuesday night dismissed demands to enact the move to help struggling families, amid fears that residential energy bills could double to ￡2,000 in April when the price cap is set to rise.
His intervention sparked a backlash among Tory MPs, who have insisted that slashing VAT from energy bills should be a “Brexit dividend” now Britain has quit the European Union, which mandates the tax is levied at a minimum of five per cent.
Speaking at a televised Downing Street press conference, Mr Johnson was challenged about a vow he himself made in May 2016 to scrap VAT from energy bills if Britons voted Leave.
He denied having misled voters with his previous remarks, but signalled that the Treasury would consider actions that were targeted only at the families most in need of support.
Lucy Fisher and Christopher Hope have the story
It is "unreasonable in the face of omicron to expect everything to remain the same" as some hospitals cancel non-urgent operations, the care minister has claimed.
Annual contingency planning means "often [slowing] down electives", according to Gillian Keegan, even though the Government "obviously wants" the backlog to remain cleared.
Speaking to the Today programme, Ms Keegan said: "What we do is we have these contingency plans where they can call for mutual aid, they can call for more volunteers, they can call for military aid if they need."
Suspensions would be for a "short period of time", she predicted. "Every winter this is something that happens every time. What is worse this year is we do know that we have a massive backlog and we are building new surgical hubs and new diagnostic hubs to be able to deal with that as well.
"But right now, if we have emergencies due to a lot of admissions at A&E that is one of the measures hospital trusts will look at. But obviously we want everyone to get their elective surgery as soon as they can."
A former minister has said he would meet the woman who stabbed him more than 11 years ago as part of a "restorative justice process", Danielle Sheridan reports.
Stephen Timms, the Labour MP for East Ham, revealed he had received a letter from Roshonara Choudhry, a British former student and an Islamic extremist who is serving a life sentence for attempted murder.
Choudhry, who stated that she had been influenced by online sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was the first al-Qaeda sympathiser to attempt an assassination in Britain.
In one of three letters, she apologised to Mr Timms for having stabbed him several times at a constituency surgery in 2010.
Full story: 'I'd welcome the opportunity to meet my attacker'
Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the NHS is struggling in a "prolonged way" rather than suddenly being on a "war footing".
"What we need to do is make sure everyone understands that," Dr Henderson told the BBC's Today programme. "There isn't something magical we can do now, this is a prolonged crisis.
"We’re not seeing the translation into very, very sick patients which is something we’re all grateful for. [But] these are real people’s lives that are having a very difficult time, at a time when they are very vulnerable and needing our help. We have to be able to provide for them and we’re struggling."
On reports that friends and family have been asked to transport heart attack or stroke victims to hospitals (see 8.11am), Dr Henderson insisted health bosses did not want is a situation "where people feel they shouldn't call if they really need to".
She also called on Boris Johnson to adopt "calm, sober language" and explain the pressures on the NHS to patients after his comments that Britain should be able to "ride out" the current wave of coronavirus.
Ministers are seeking to ensure the Covid testing system "makes sense" after a surge in demand for lateral flow tests, the care minister has said.
Asked about today's reports that testing is to be reformed, Gillian Keegan told LBC: "I know that because of the absolutely huge number of lateral flow tests we’re doing, they are looking at the testing regime all the time and keeping it under review.
"So they are looking at what makes sense, because most people are doing many, many lateral flow tests in a week or a couple of times a week at least.
"So they are looking now because we know there is quite a high positive rate with PCR tests. We keep these things under review all the time."
She pushed back on the prospect of any further restrictions, saying any decision to introduce further measures is “not one to be taken lightly… It’s not easy to lock down a country, it comes with costs and consequences”.
The health minister has asked NHS England to look at reports that people are being asked to transport heart attack or stroke sufferers themselves as ambulances are overstretched.
The advice is said to have been given out at North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, the Health Service Journal reported.
"That is not what we have put in place at all," Ms Keegan told Sky News. "We have more ambulance crews in operation than we have ever had, we also gave ￡55 million extra just for this period to cover staff and make sure we had increases in staff and staffing levels.
"I've actually asked NHS England to look at that particular case because that doesn't sound to me like that's an acceptable approach - people should be able to get an ambulance if they have a heart attack and that's why we've put that extra funding in place."
She added that any decision to introduce further measures is “not one to be taken lightly… It’s not easy to lock down a country, it comes with costs and consequences”.
Key workers not covered by a new daily lateral flow testing scheme can get tests ‘very easily’, the care minister has said.
"It’s fire, police, emergency services, I think Border Force, testing lab staff - they’re quite critical at the moment - and some elements of transport. But not everybody in transport would be considered critical, and would need to have this daily test delivered to them every day," Gillian Keegan told Sky News.
“They can get tests very easily, actually. The main channel for most people is to get tests via the main channels, either booking to get something sent to your home or pharmacies."
Ms Keegan said there had been a "couple of surges in demand" which meant tests had not been available, but added ministers and officials had worked over Christmas to triple its capacity by the end of February.
While people waiting a week for a PCR result is not “typical”, she conceded “some people are waiting too long” until confirmation on whether or not they have Covid.
“Around a million people” are currently self-isolating due to coronavirus, the care minister has confirmed ahead of a planned relaxation of testing rules.
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