Covid vaccines are expected to be offered to children in the UK aged 16 and 17, in line with many other countries, after a minister confirmed government experts will update their advice “imminently”. Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, said the government was expecting an announcement from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on...
The government will spend a record £5.2bn on reducing flooding in England over the next six years, as the climate crisis increases the risk to homes and businesses. The Environment Agency will spend £860m next year to support more than 1,000 schemes, with significant funds for Yorkshire and the Humber and the north-west, regions that have been...
Keir Starmer is preparing to support a purge of far-left factions that were vocal supporters of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. After 15 months of being party leader, Starmer is expected to support a proposal before the party’s governing body on Tuesday to proscribe four named groups. The proposal, first reported in the Daily Mirror, has angered leftwing...
The government has denied that its controversial new free speech legislation will provide a platform for Holocaust deniers on campuses, arguing that the bill is vital in order to tackle a “growing intolerance” in universities. The higher education (freedom of speech) bill came under sustained attack from Labour, which claimed the legislation amounted to nothing more...
Ministers are planning to remove all mandatory mask and social distancing restrictions in England on 19 July, but national guidance may still encourage caution in high-risk areas such as public transport. A number of key scientific advisers including England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and the government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, are said to be behind ministers’...
It has been a testing few weeks for Kim Leadbeater, the Labour candidate in Batley and Spen, and her campaign team is looking for some light relief. Leadbeater is the sister of the area’s former MP Jo Cox who was murdered in the constituency by a rightwing extremist in 2016, a few days before the EU referendum. Now she...
Conservative MPs are growing concerned that their party conference will be cancelled this year due to Covid, with tickets for the get-together still yet to become available. Raising a point of order in the Commons William Wragg said it was “a little strange” that Tory head office was unable to say with “certainty” that the event...
Holidaymakers should not pin their hopes on a slew of extra countries being added to the quarantine-free green list when it is updated later this month, government sources have warned. With ministers monitoring data daily on the spread of the Delta variant, after stage four of the reopening roadmap was postponed by a month to...
England is braced for a four-week extension of coronavirus restrictions to 19 July, after Boris Johnson said he will take a “cautious” approach to the final removal of lockdown. Hospitality chiefs told The Independent that the extra month of curbs will cost the sector £3bn and put 200,000 jobs at risk, and there were warnings...
Hundreds of women who were forced to give up babies for adoption in the 1950s, 60s and 70s are demanding a formal government apology. Many of the women were unmarried teenagers when they became pregnant, and gave birth in church-run “mother and baby homes” in the UK. An estimated quarter of a million women were...