UK coronavirus live: test shortage could lead to ‘default lockdown’, says head of teachers union | Politics

Good Morning. Boris Johnson will have PMQ later, and it will be surprising if he is not asked about his promise to establish a “world-beating” test-and-trace system, given that the testing crisis appears to be escalating, at least according to newspaper front pages. Just take a look …

It is often assumed that Johnson promised a “world” system in an impromptu response on PMQs, but in fact he first used the phrase in his Sunday night television address to the nation on May 10. He said:

If we are to control this virus, then we must have a worldwide system for testing potential victims and tracing their contacts. So in total, we are testing literally hundreds of thousands of people every day.

Ten days later at PMQ, when Sir Keir Starmer said he would settle for one that was simply ‘effective’, Johnson repeated his promise with an additional time scale, telling MPs: ‘We will have a trial, trace and trace operation that It will be global – the beating, and yes, it will be in place on June 1 ”.

That has not fully materialized, and this morning the fallout was vividly highlighted when a teachers union said the unavailability of the tests could lead to a “default lockdown.” Geoff barton, general secretary of the Association of School and University Leaders (ASCL), told the Today show that principals were being forced to decide that the “bubble has to stay at home” if a student or teacher from a school year had shown Covid -19 symptoms and could not get a test to show they were negative. Continuous:

I think this will feel like a default lock; it will be more frustrating for parents because you cannot predict if it will happen. And similarly, from the principal’s point of view, if my fourth-grade teacher shows symptoms today, will he be in school tomorrow, will he be here for the next 14 days? As soon as you start to achieve that with six, seven, eight teachers, it becomes untenable to be able to run things.

Barton also quoted a director who had emailed him overnight to say they felt “duped” by the government. Barton summarized the header message in the email as follows:

I feel like everything we put in place (the one-way systems, the bubbles and all that, we’ve done), but now we’re stumbling over the fact that whether it’s a kid or a staff member, I just can’t do a test and it leaves us in a position where I don’t know if I can deliver some of those lessons tomorrow, or indeed for the next two weeks. It’s infuriating.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10 am: Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, gives evidence to the Northern Ireland Commons committee on the Northern Ireland protocol and the Internal Market Bill that would empower ministers to override it.

10 am: Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, testifies to the Commons education committee.

12:00 h: Boris Johnson faces Angela Rayner, the Deputy Labor leader, at PMQ. Sir Keir Starmer is at home, isolated from himself.

12.15 h: The Scottish government is expected to hold its daily briefing on the coronavirus.

1.30 pm: Downing Street holds its briefing in the lobby.

3.30 pm: Johnson testifies to the Commons liaison committee.

And sometime today, the government is releasing its sentencing white paper. Jamie Grierson and Owen Bowcott have seen a preview of what will be here.

Politics Live has doubled as the UK’s coronavirus live blog for some time and given the way the Covid crisis overshadows everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we will also cover political stories that do not belong to Covid, such as Brexit, and where they seem most important and interesting, they will take priority.

Here’s our global coronavirus live blog.

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