5.14am EDT
05:14
Government delays fully implementation of new post-Brexit health and safety checks on EU imports
4.50am EDT
04:50
Zahawi confirms 12-year-old could be allowed to be vaccinated against wishes of parents
4.33am EDT
04:33
Johnson to announce ‘last piece of jigsaw’ vaccine booster rollout as part of winter plan
5.14am EDT
05:14
Government delays fully implementation of new post-Brexit health and safety checks on EU imports
Lord Frost, the Brexit minister, has announced that a series of post-Brexit health checks on goods that were due to be imposed on EU imports to the UK from later this year, or from January, are being postponed. He says this will give businesses more time to prepare.
Here are the border checks that are affected.
The requirement for pre-notification of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) goods
Was due to start: 1 October 2021
Now starting: 1 January 2022
The new requirements for export health certificates
Was due to start: 1 October 2021
Now starting: 1 July 2022
Phytosanitary certificates and physical checks on SPS goods at border control posts
Was due to start: 1 January 2022
Now starting: 1 July 2022
Safety and security declarations on imports
Was due to start: 1 January 2022
Now starting: 1 July 2022
In a statement Frost said:
We want businesses to focus on their recovery from the pandemic rather than have to deal with new requirements at the border, which is why we’ve set out a pragmatic new timetable for introducing full border controls.
Businesses will now have more time to prepare for these controls which will be phased in throughout 2022.
The government remains on track to deliver the new systems, infrastructure and resourcing required.
4.56am EDT
04:56
Prof Anthony Harnden, deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), told the Today programme that he would not feel comfortable about a 12-year-old child deciding to get vaccinated against the wishes of their parents. (See 9.50am.)
Asked about this possibility, he told the programme:
I wouldn’t feel comfortable about that.
I think we have to be really careful that we go by the law, and the law clearly states that the child and parent should try to come to an agreed conclusion.
But that if the child wants to go ahead or doesn’t want to go ahead and the parent feels absolutely the opposite, then the clinician involved in administering the vaccine needs to be absolutely sure that the child is competent to make that decision.
There will be a grade of competency from the age of 16 downwards, so 14 to 15-year-olds may be deemed competent to make that decision on their own, it’s less likely that a 12 or 13-year-old will be deemed competent.
4.50am EDT
04:50
Zahawi confirms 12-year-old could be allowed to be vaccinated against wishes of parents
In his interviews this morning Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, said children aged 12 to 15 would be able to decide to get vaccinated against the wishes of their parents – provided they were deemed competent to do so by a clinician. He told Sky News:
Children will have a leaflet that they can share with their parents and of course we have a consent form that will go to them either electronically and, in some schools physically, to their parents, and their parents will then read all the information, have to give consent if the child is to be vaccinated.
On the very rare occasion where there is a difference of opinion between the parent and the 12-15 year-old, where the parent for example doesn’t want to give consent but the 12-15 year-old wants to have the vaccine, then the first step is the clinician will bring the parent and the child together to see whether they can reach consent.
If that is not possible, then if the child is deemed to be competent – and this has been around since the ’80s for all vaccination programmes in schools – if the child is deemed to be competent, Gillick competence as it is referred to, then the child can have the vaccine.
But these are very rare occasions and it is very important to remember that the School Age Immunisation Service is incredibly well equipped to deal with this – clinicians are very well versed in delivering vaccinations to 12 to 15-year-olds in schools.
The concept is known as “Gillick competence” in legal circles after Victoria Gillick, the campaigner who went to court in the 1980s to stop doctors giving contraceptives to children under the age of 16 without their parents consent. The case ended up in the House of Lords, where the law lords made a ruling that still applies today.
Updated
at 4.57am EDT
4.39am EDT
04:39
A controversial plan to build a tunnel between Scotland and Northern Ireland has been ditched before ground was broken, it has been reported, as the Treasury clamps down on spending. My colleague Jamie Grierson has the story.
4.33am EDT
04:33
Johnson to announce ‘last piece of jigsaw’ vaccine booster rollout as part of winter plan
Good morning. As my colleagues Aubrey Allegretti and Peter Walker reports, later today Boris Johnson will confirm the start of a booster jabs programme for the over-50s, as part of an announcement about the government’s winter plan for Covid.
In an interview this morning Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine deployment minister, said the booster programme would be the “final piece of the jigsaw” as the UK transitions away from dealing with coronavirus as a pandemic. He said:
This is probably the last piece of the jigsaw to allow us to transition this virus from pandemic to endemic and I hope by next year we will be in a position to deal with this virus with an annual inoculation programme as we do flu.
I will post more from his interviews soon.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Boris Johnson chairs cabinet.
10am: Sir Keir Starmer gives a speech to the TUC conference.
11.30am: The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation hold a press conference.
12pm: Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, gives a speech.
After 1pm: MPs begin debating the health and social care levy bill, which is due to pass all its Commons stages in one day. The second reading vote will take place three hours after the debate starts, and votes on committee stage amendments will take place another three hours later.
After 2pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, gives a statement in the Scottish parliament on Covid.
4pm: Boris Johnson holds a press conference to give details of the government’s winter plan for Covid.
At some point today there will also be a statement in the Commons on the Covid winter plan, but the timing of that has not been announced yet.
For further Covid coverage, do read our global live blog.
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Updated
at 4.57am EDT