PM accused of ‘dereliction of duty’ on NI as trade from Ireland to GB slumps 50% – follow live

The Home Office’s most senior civil servant has said the thousands of records wiped from the Police National Computer are “recoverable” but will take “some weeks” to retrieve.

Matthew Rycroft, the Home Office permanent secretary, told MPs this was the risk to public safety was “minimal”.

“All of those deletions refer to what’s called ‘no further action’ cases,” he told the Public Accounts Committee.

“We are confident that the data is all recoverable and we are in the process of recovering that data.

Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative MP for Bournemouth East, has requested that the clock change be brought forward by one month in order to allow people to spend more time outdoors in daylight.

Drawing a comparison with the Second World War, Mr Ellwood argued the clocks should go forward on 28 February, a full month ahead of schedule.

“Sunshine brightens our day, it lifts morale, it raises our spirits and encourages outdoor activity,” the former defence minister said in a video posted to Twitter.

“Yet as we advance towards spring, even more of us are getting up after sunrise, but are staying up long after sunset, effectively wasting this free commodity.”

Our Political Editor Andrew Woodcock has rounded up the key points from Matt Hancock’s press conference just now:

Asked why futher measures were not being introduced in areas where the South African variant had been found, the health secretary said: “We already have this very strong set of rules, indeed laws, in place against people travelling unecessarily.

 “People should stay at home unless they absolutely have to leave. Anybody thinking about stretching the rules in those areas must not.”

“If you’re in one of the areas where the new variant has been found, stay at home and let’s get this new variant totally under control.”

Leading the Downing Street press briefing today, Matt Hancock said 105 cases of the South African coronavirus variant have been identified in the UK.

He said 11 of them appear to have no connection to travel and went on to list the eight postcode areas where enhanced testing is now being carried out  after such cases were identified.

They are: W7, N17 and CR4 in London, WS2 in Walsall, ME15 in Kent, EN10 in Hertfordshire, GU21 in Surrey and PR9 in Lancashire.

Ursula von Der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has blamed one of her deputies for Friday’s humiliating U-turn on vaccine export controls that soured relations with Dublin and London.

“What I can tell you is that there is one cabinet which was lead on this, that is Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis because he is in charge of trade,” the commission’s chief spokesperson said when asked.

“This regulation falls under the responsibility of Mr Dombrovskis and his cabinet and of course the services of the commission which respond to him.”

Our Policy Correspondent Jon Stone has more on this:

James Heappey, the minister for the armed forces, told the Commons he “agrees” that roles should be updated to reflect the modern make-up of the services.

In response to a question from Flick Drummond, Tory MP for Meon Valley, on whether gender rank titles should be updated, the defence minister said: “This former rifleman rather agrees.

“The issue of gender-ranked titles is something the chiefs have been considering and diverse and inclusion leads are working collaboratively across the services to develop an inclusive language guide for release in the spring.”

Poverty-fighting schemes run by local councils are failing after funds were slashed and some were axed altogether, a group of Conservative MPs is warning.

The group, led by former ministers Paul Maynard and Iain Duncan Smith, will urge a review of Local Welfare Assistance Schemes (LWAS) – in a move threatening to further embarrass Rishi Sunak, amid the ongoing row over Universal Credit cuts.

The funds are meant to help people with no spare money to pay for emergencies, such as a broken washing machine or to cope with flood damage, through grants or loans.  

But councils are spending as little as £41m a year, not the £132m intended – itself a huge reduction on the £330m Social Fund axed 8 years ago – and at least 23 have no scheme at all.

More on this from Deputy Political Editor Rob Merrick here: 

Boris Johnson has thrown plans for lifting the lockdown into confusion, suggesting he will abandon the expected return to a system of local tiers, deputy political editor Rob Merrick reports.

Ministers had said the government was likely to go back to the model of varying restrictions introduced last year, which depended on the level of the Covid-19 threat in each area.

But the prime minister said there were now only “a few discrepancies, a few differences” from area to area, since the more virulent variant of coronavirus took hold.

Downing Street has refused to condemn a minister for launching a public attack on a journalist who asked questions about her role in the government’s vaccine programme, blaming the outburst on a “misunderstanding”, political editor Andrew Woodcock reports.

Boris Johnson’s press secretary Allegra Stratton refused to say whether the prime minister condoned equalities minister Kemi Badenoch’s decision to publish the journalist’s emails on social media in a stream of tweets accusing her of “creepy and bizarre” behaviour.