The vaccines minister has said she is "not sure" how many Britons are stuck in self-isolation, amid calls to reduce the required quarantine period from seven days to five.
Maggie Throup was also unable to say how many NHS Trusts had declared critical incidents or how many young people aged 15 to 17 had been vaccinated.
Asked about how many people are in isolation amid reports that the figure has reached one million, Ms Throup told Sky News: “I’m not sure of that actual figure but I think what’s shown over Christmas is that a lot of people have caught the disease.
"The omicron variant is very transmissible, but what is very good news is it doesn’t seem to be resulting in as severe disease as other variants did."
Asked "perhaps you just don't know?" when she did not answer a question about how many hospitals had declared incidents, Ms Throup admitted: "To be honest, I haven't had an update this morning."
Robert Halfon, the Tory chairman of the education select committee, last night called on ministers to "seriously consider" cutting the isolation period for healthy children who test positive, while Tim Spector, the British epidemiologist behind the ZOE Covid study app, criticised "over-cautious isolating rules" and added: "Let's reduce this to five days."
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Sir Tony Blair "deserves" his knighthood, Sir Keir Starmer has said, as a petition to strip the former Labour leader of his honour hit more than 500,000 signatures.
Sir Tony was made a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in the New Year’s Honours, some 14 years after he left Downing Street.
An online petition for him to have the honour rescinded - which criticises his constitutional changes and his foreign policy decisions over the Iraq and Afghanistan wars - has now been signed more than 540,000 times.
Speaking on Tuesday morning ahead of a key speech outlining Labour’s vision for the coming year, Sir Keir was asked whether Mr Blair's knighthood was a "thorny" issue.
"I think Tony Blair deserves the honour, he won three elections, he was a very successful Prime Minister," Sir Keir told Good Morning Britain.
Read more: 'It's not a thorny issue at all'
The collapse of Stormont is “inevitable” unless the Northern Ireland Protocol is renegotiated, the First Minister has warned.
Paul Givan said the current deal between the UK and EU, agreed during Brexit talks and in effect since early 2021, must be revised in order to work for all parties.
"I think there is an inevitability about these institutions not being able to work if we don’t address the Protocol issues... because it doesn’t have the support of the Unionist community," Mr Givan told the BBC.
It came after Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, must deliver a "clear date" by which a deal with the EU is agreed or Article 16 is triggered. Read the full story here
The number of illegal migrants caught trying to enter the UK with fake identity documents jumped to more than 2,000 a year - as prosecutions plummeted by 75 per cent, reports Charles Hymas.
Figures revealed through Freedom of Information requests showed that Border Force uncovered 2,134 cases of migrants using fraudulent documents to enter the UK in 2019, up from 1,589 in 2010.
Prosecutions have, however, fallen over the same period from 1,200 to just 300, accounting for just a quarter of the cases where migrants have been caught with fake documents.
Among those who have used fake documents to enter the UK is Emad Al Swealmeen, the Liverpool bomber, who blew himself up outside a women’s hospital on November 11. He deceived officials during an asylum interview after using a fake Jordanian passport to enter the UK.
Full story: Fake identity prosecutions down by almost 1,000 despite rise in crime
Rail passengers were hit by disruption on the first working day of the year in England and Wales due to a combination of faults and coronavirus-related staff shortages.
Stuart Lovell was left stranded at St Mary Cray when his 7.18am South Eastern service didn't stop.
The provider said: "I am so sorry this didn't stop at the station.
"The train service manager has informed me there was a shortage of train staff at the station earlier, thus services where unable to stop."
A number of other people said they had been left unable to get to work on time due to cancellations. Demand for rail travel is at around 50 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, which is partly due to Government guidance that people should work from home.
Gareth Davies has more here
Political debates about statues and heritage foster a "false divide" in society, Labour’s new shadow culture secretary has said - as she insisted she is an "ordinary parent" who is "not a North London luvvie”.
Lucy Powell, who was promoted to the culture brief in Sir Keir Starmer’s November reshuffle, said that she would be a “more difficult opponent” for the Conservatives on woke issues and that she planned to take culture wars debates head on.
In her first newspaper interview since taking the new role, the MP for Manchester Central set out her stall as an “ordinary northern parent”. She also pledged to show how Labour would use culture and sport to “level up” the country.
Sir Keir has often avoided talking about culture wars issues such as no-platforming and the removal of statues. He faces divisions in his party over questions like whether he should deliver speeches in front of the Union flag.
Read Lucy's interview with Tony Diver here
Sir Keir Starmer has defended Tony Blair receiving a knighthood in the New Year's Honours.
Sir Keir denied it was a "thorny" issue that Sir Tony, the former Labour leader, should keep his knighthood but said he respected "that people have different views" on the honour.
"I understand there are strong views on the Iraq war, there were back at the time and there still are," he told Good Morning Britain.
"But that does not detract from the fact that Tony Blair was a very successful prime minister of this country and made a huge difference to the lives of millions of people in this country."
There is no requirement for the petition to be discussed or debated in Parliament because it has been set up on change.org, rather than through the Government website.
Sixty per cent of Britons say that they are not willing to pay higher taxes on their energy bills to help reach the Government’s net zero targets, according to a poll.
Some 70 per cent of Britons said they had worried about energy costs over the festive period, with more than 60 per cent saying they did not believe they would benefit from the Government’s green subsidies.
Three in five of the 2,176 questioned said they did not want to pay higher taxes on their bills with a similar proportion saying they had not been given enough of a say on the net zero policies, according to the poll commissioned by campaign group Net Zero Watch.
Craig Mackinlay, a Tory MP and the chairman of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, said: "The general public are quite obviously not onside, and we need to be very careful about just whose shoulders are going to be carrying the very considerable costs of net zero."
Read more from Charles Hymas, our Home Affairs Editor
Sadiq Khan is to begin decriminalising drugs in London and plans to end the prosecution of young people caught with cannabis, The Telegraph has learned.
Under-25s found with Class B drugs in some boroughs will be offered speeding course-style classes or counselling instead of arrest, under a pilot scheme to be launched.
The boroughs of Lewisham, Bexley and Greenwich will be subject to the rules of the new scheme, with police officers told not to arrest young people caught with cannabis, ketamine or speed. Offenders will instead be taken back to their family homes and kept away from police custody.
The move will set Mr Khan on a collision course with the Government and Labour leadership, which have both stressed the need for tougher action on drug users to reduce demand for criminal activity.
Sir Keir Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, has said he does not believe decriminalisation should be pursued in England, after a similar scheme was introduced in Scotland last year.
Tony Diver, our Political Correspondent, has the story
Sir Keir Starmer will today set out the Labour Party's vision for the new year as he gives an address in Birmingham.
"I'm setting out my plans for 2022 [and] what we, the Labour Party, say the changes should be for our country, making it a better place - building a new Britain coming out of the pandemic," Sir Keir told Good Morning Britain.
"For the last year or two we have been talking about the pandemic, we have been concerned about the pandemic a great deal. What I'm setting out today is that vision, but the huge opportunity for our country."
Sir Keir added he was also "doing something opposition leaders don't do very often, which is celebrating our country" in addition to what he feels Britain can go on to achieve.
According to LBC, the Labour leader is expected to say: "I believe that the best still lies ahead for this country. But only if we have the courage to create a new Britain. A country in which you and your family get the security, prosperity and respect you deserve."
A wave of coronavirus infections should be expected in children as schools reopen but there is "good news" about the lack of severe omicron cases, according to Professor Neil Ferguson.
Prof Ferguson, whose modelling led to the introduction of the first restrictions in March 2020, was appearing on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning.
"Omicron slipped in the middle in 18 to 45-year-olds really but it didn't, as we heard, have much time to get into school children before schools shut," he said. "We expect to now see quite high infection levels, of mild infection I should emphasise, in school age children.
"I think the good news here is it is certainly less severe, we think about one-third drop in the risk if you've never been infected before, never had a vaccine, about a one-third drop in the risk of just any hospital admission, probably a two-thirds drop in the risk of dying from omicron, so substantially less severe and that has helped us, undoubtedly."
Pressure on the NHS is becoming "almost impossible," the chief executive of the NHS Confederation has said, "which is why we see hospitals declaring critical incidents".
Matthew Taylor added self-isolation requirements should only be reduced if the science suggested that it was safe to do so.
"I’ve seen people who’ve had this variant, and what I’ve seen is they can get ill for a couple of days, think they’ve got better, and then get ill again," he told Times Radio. "We do not want people in these circumstances going back into hospitals or health situations with any risk of passing the infection on.”
While Mr Taylor observed there were reasons to feel "hope and confidence about the medium term" and the prospect of becoming more able to live with coronavirus, he called on the Government to "recognise where we are now".
"One thing people are now starting to find difficult is there’s almost a politicised attempt to suggest things aren’t as difficult as they are. What you want politicians and people to be driven by is the data and what is happening at the front line. Let’s not be in the business of getting away from the reality of this, we as a society and individuals have to do everything we can."
The vaccines minister has pushed back on claims the booster rollout has "flatlined" after it emerged there are around two million vacant slots that have not been booked.
Asked if the rollout was flatlining, Maggie Throup told Sky News: “No, not at all. What’s been really encouraging is how many people have come forward over the Bank Holidays. We always expected a drop off over the Bank Holidays.
"It’s only right that we do have slots for people to book in the next few days, and also it’s never too late for people to come forward for their first jab and their second jab... [these are] incredible figures over a very short time period.”
Ms Throup pointed out that people who have or recently had coronavirus are not able to receive any further doses of a vaccine until 28 days after their positive test. A total of 34.2 million vaccine doses have been administered to date, which equates to around three in four eligible adults.
The vaccines minister has insisted the booster rollout is the "best way" for life to "get back to normal" amid calls from the Royal College of Nursing to take a more cautious approach.
"The omicron variant is very transmissible, but what is very good news is it doesn’t seem to be resulting in as severe disease as other variants did. People were taking precautions over Christmas,” Maggie Throup told Sky News.
"What has been so clear over recent weeks is that the vaccine is working. And that’s the best way to stop the transmission and to stop hospitalisations and for our life to get back to normal."
Ms Throup highlighted that hospital occupancy with Covid is about half of what it was this time last year, and people are going in "with less severe conditions than before".
The vaccines minister has said she is "not sure" how many Britons are stuck in self-isolation amid calls to reduce the required quarantine period from seven days to five.
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