Chancellor announcing plans to support jobs and businesses when furlough scheme runs out
Nicola Sturgeon has written to Boris Johnson calling for urgent four-nation talks to reach a UK-wide consensus on tightening restrictions ever further.
More detail from Nicola Sturgeon’s letter to Boris Johnson emerged overnight, in which she writes:
While all four governments announced new restrictions yesterday, there is clearly a significant strand of scientific opinion to the effect that bringing R back below one and the virus back under control will require measures beyond those which any of us have so far announced. In my view, there is considerable force in that opinion.
We’ve been battled Covid, because of the devolution settlement, with one hand tied behind our backs. Without a UK budget this year we’d have both hands tied behind our backs …
At a time of unprecedented change my counterparts in Wales and Northern Ireland and myself are absolutely clear that to be expected to set budgets in the devolved governments for the NHS, local governments, tax rates, without information from the UK government just does not understand the challenges.
Almost 10,000 people a day in the UK are contracting coronavirus, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has warned, as Scotland’s first minister requested urgent talks with the UK government to consider further tighten social restrictions. My colleague Jessica Elgot has the story here.
Related: Almost 10,000 people a day contracting Covid in UK, Hancock says
