Boris Johnson news live: Latest PMQs updates as PM faces Keir Starmer

The prime minister should “have a word” with Tory MPs who have been calling coronavirus data into question, Keir Starmer has said. 

He said that this threatens to derail the UK’s recovery from the pandemic. “Does the Prime Minister agree that these kinds of comments are irresponsible and undermine our national recovery?” the Labour leader said.

In response, Boris Johnson dodged the question, saying the roadmap will put the country on a “cautious but irreversible journey to freedom”.

Keir Starmer has called on the government to give everyone who has to self-isolate £500, as three in ten people are currently failing to abide by quarantine rules.

Speaking at PMQs, the Labour leader said many people cannot afford to self-isolate because the government does not offer them enough support.

“Why, after all the billions the government has thrown around, is it still people in low paid jobs who are at the bottom of this government’s priority list?” he said.

Home secretary Priti Patel has claimed that the police have not been “hindered” by the accidental deletion of 209,550 offence records from its computer system.

Speaking to the Commons Home Affairs Committee, the minister said “209,550 offence records were wrongly deleted which were associated to 112,697 persons records”.

She added that no records of convictions had been erased.

When asked what the impact of the mistake was, Ms Patel said: “We are not hearing from policing that this has hindered them in terms of day to day policing at all.”

Labour has criticised the government’s £400 million funding pledge to help pupils catch up on lost learning, saying it does not go nearly far enough.

Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, said: “This is not adequate and will not make up for the learning and time with friends that children have lost.”

She also said that there had been no mention of support for children’s mental health and wellbeing, a “fundamental” measure to ensure recovery from the pandemic.

“Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak spent more on the failed Eat Out to Help Out Scheme than they will on our children’s recovery. This package amounts to just 43p per day for each child,” Ms Green added.

A great deal of work still needs to be done to repair the damage caused by the Windrush scandal, the home secretary has said.

Priti Patel told the Home Affairs Committee that it would take time to “build bridges” through outreach and the government’s Windrush Community Fund.

“It is absolutely taking time to build bridges, raise awareness and give people trust and confidence about the scheme and the ability to claim on the scheme,” she said.

The government will not ditch the Northern Ireland protocol but will work to improve post-Brexit trade disruption in the territory, a minister has said.

This comes after unionists called for it to be scapped, claiming that customs checks across the Irish Sea threatened the constitutional “integrity” of the UK.

Ahead of a meeting between the UK and the EU on Wednesday to discuss the situation, Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, told BBC Radio Ulster that the protocol should remain in place.

Asked whether it should be scrapped, he said: “No, the protocol is a legal agreement that’s there, that’s in place, and we’ve got to make sure that we make it work in a positive way for people in Northern Ireland.”

“I do understand that the lived experience of some people in Northern Ireland is not what it should be under the protocol, we’ve got to get that put right,” he added.

A Scottish Conservative MSP, who serves on the committee investigating the Scottish government’s handling of complaints made against Alex Salmond, has said he is “heartily sick of the whole affair”.

Murdo Fraser wrote in the Scotsman: “I am sick of the lies, the evasion, the deceit, the obstruction, and the obfuscation.”

He claimed that the saga showed the Scottish government was a “cesspit of vipers obsessed with personal vendettas, tearing at each other and destroying public trust”.

Vaccine passports to prove immunity against coronavirus could be banned in some circumstances, the prime minister has said.

Boris Johnson’s comments come after some employers said they planned to implement “no jab, no job” policies.

The government’s review into vaccine and testing certification, to be led by Michael Gove, will reported by 21 June.

Our political editor Andrew Woodcock reports:

Rishi Sunak is set to extend the stamp duty holiday by another three months, according to the Times.

Last year, the Treasury raised the stamp duty threshold from £125,000 to £500,000 to help the housing market during the pandemic.

This temporary measure is due to expire on 31 March. However, reports suggest that the chancellor will use next week’s Budget to prolong the deadline until the end of June.

Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, called the alleged plan “another tax giveaway to second homeowners”.

“These are the wrong priorities in the middle of the worst economic crisis of any major economy,” she said.

LGBT+ representation in government has stalled under Boris Johnson, the first openly gay cabinet minister has said.

Lord Chris Smith, who was a minister under Tony Blair, told the BBC in an interview for LGBT+ History Month that the prime minister had a “blind spot” on the issue.

The former minister said: “The glass ceiling in the cabinet has been broken by quite a number of us over the years.”

“Sadly at present they seem to want to put it back in again,” he added.

My colleague Tom Batchelor has more details: