Covid news - live: Boris Johnson reveals end of lockdown roadmap as Whitty backs five-week gap between stages

House of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle marked the passing of a Westminster catering service worker who died last week after contracting Covid-19 following a battle with cancer.

On Monday, Sir Lindsay said the worker, identified as Julia Clifford, had passed away last week “just after bravely fighting cancer”.

He said she had joined the Westminster cafeteria services team in October 1985.

“She was a very hardworking and popular member of our parliamentary family who always had a smile and time for everybody,” Sir Lindsay said.

The speaker said he had put forward a recommendation to consider the renaming of the members tea room to “Julia’s tea room”.

“The tea room will never be them same ,” he said.

Other MPs also joined in offering their condolences to Ms Clifford’s family.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to unveil his road map leading England out of lockdown to MPs in the Commons at around 3.30pm on Monday.

Later this evening, at around 7pm, he will lead a Downing Street press conference making a full announcement on the plans.

Read more on the prime minister’s announcements here:

Primary school children in Wales are set to return to their classrooms from 15 March if conditions allow, the country’s education minister has said.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Kirsty Williams said the Welsh Government would ideally also like to see students in years 11 and 13, as well as some students in colleges, return to schools from the same date.

“Where possible, we also want to give some flexibility around other learners, such as Year 12 and those in Year 10 who may also have been entered into qualifications this summer,” she said, according to PA.

“Unfortunately, for those learners in secondary settings or colleges, this won’t necessarily be a return to full-time on-site learning.”

She said the plan for other students would be confirmed before the Easter holidays. However, she said her own preference was to “get all learners back in school after the break”.

Professor Andrew Hayward, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) has warned that further coronavirus restrictions could be necessary if variants “escape immunity”.

“When we have got a road map, we need to be clear about where we are going,” Prof Hayward told BBC Radio 4’s World At One on Monday.

“It’s obvious that we are not really going for an elimination agenda, or at least that is fairly unlikely, unless the vaccine is a lot better than we think it might be,” he said. “So, somehow we have got to learn to live with the virus and that really means making decisions about how many deaths and how many hospitalisations we are prepared to live with.”

However, he warned: “The new variants could change our equations on all of that, if we have new variants that do escape immunity and the vaccine is less effective.

“Then I think we could still be looking at the need for further restrictions, for example in the winter.”

More than 15.4 million Covid-19 vaccinations took place in England from early December to last week, NHS England data has shown.

A total of 15,471,509 were distributed across the country between 8 December and 21 February, according to the data, with the figures including first and second doses.

Of the total, 14,958,074 jabs were for the first dose of a vaccine, while 513,435 were for a second dose.

People with “mild or moderate” learning difficulties are set to be vaccinated as part of the Scottish Government’s next phase of its vaccination rollout programme.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced the decision on Monday at a coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh.

First, as part of the priority group six, the largest group to be vaccinated so far, people suffering from severe learning difficulties will receive vaccinations alongside those with underlying health conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease.

“We also intend to include people with mild or moderate learning disabilities in group six, although we will have some work to do to make sure we are identifying and reaching everyone in that category,” the First Minister said.

Group six is the largest group which has been vaccinated thus far, being made up of around one million people, the First Minister said.

With group six being made up of around one million people, Ms Sturgeon said “it will take some weeks to provide first doses to everyone in that group”.

“If you don’t receive a letter giving you an appointment this week or next week, I would ask you not to worry, we will get to you as quickly as possible,” she said.

Scotland’s plan to ease out of lockdown will be “broadly similar” to the Boris Johnson government’s, but not identical, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

“Our plans out of lockdown will not be identical, they are already not identical because we’ve got some kids back in school today which is not the case in England until into March, so we will not be identical but I think there will be broad similarities,” Ms Sturgeon said at the Scottish Government’s coronavirus briefing on Monday, according to PA.

“Similar to us, it seems that they have prioritised children and education and getting life back to normal before doing other things,” she said.

“So I think the principles will be the same - we’re living through the same pandemic,” she said.

“There is a limit to how much it is sensible to diverge in the circumstances we’re facing in common but clearly we will make our own judgments about the particular order and the particular timing of that because the data is not identical in each of the four nations.”

Ms Sturgeon is expected to set out plans for Scotland’s gradual easing of lockdown rules at the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday afternoon, a day after Mr Johnson outlines his own road map.

She has said her plan will give an idea of the phasing of restrictions lifting, but would not provide exact reopening dates.

“We will seek to set out tomorrow an indicative order of priority and the likely phasing of firstly the gradual lifting of the current lockdown restrictions and then in due course, a return to the geographic levels system when we would decide whether all or parts of the country may move out of Level 4 and into Level 3, and of course that’s the part where more parts of the economy will start to open up,” she said.

“This will be a cautious way forward because it’s really important that as we come out of this lockdown, we do so sustainably.”

A police officer has accepted gross misconduct after she breached coronavirus lockdown rules by attending a house party and then crashed her vehicle into a building while driving over the drink-drive limit.

Pc Tasia Stephens, 24, failed a breathalyser test after crashing her car into a building less than two miles away from the family event she had attended in the early hours of Sunday, 26 April last year.

A misconduct hearing on Monday heard that the South Wales Police officer was off duty that Saturday evening when she attended the gathering at her aunt’s home in Treorchy, Wales, according to PA.

At the time, the UK had been under strict stay-at-home rules, with a ban in place in Wales barring people from meeting indoors or outdoors with anyone they did not live with.

Last year, on 10 July, she pleaded guilty in court to driving under the influence of alcohol and she was given a conditional discharge for 12 months, with a driving ban for 15 months.

In Monday’s hearing, Pc Stephens said she accepted that the allegations against her amounted to discreditable conduct and that taken together, they amounted to gross misconduct.

Scotland has recorded 715 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours and no deaths, Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed.

It brings the death toll under this measure - of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days - to 6,950.

Speaking at the Scottish government's coronavirus briefing, the first minister said Scotland's test positivity rate stood at 6.6 per cent, up from 5.5 per cent the previous day.

There are 1,141 hospital patients with recently confirmed Covid-19, a rise of nine in 24 hours, with the number in intensive care remaining unchanged at 99.

Meanwhile a total of 1,445,488 had received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, an increase of 13,546 from the previous day.

All primary school children in Wales will return to their classrooms from 15 March if conditions allow, the country’s education minister has said.

Kirsty Williams said the Welsh government would also like to see students in years 11 and 13, as well as those doing similar qualifications in colleges, return to face-to-face teaching from that date.

Ministers would also like to give “some flexibility” to other learners, such as Year 12 and Year 10, who may also have been entered into qualifications this summer, she added.

Ms Williams said the scientific advice supports a phased approach to children returning to school, as taken by the Welsh government.

When asked about schools reopening in England on 8 March, she said: “I haven’t received any new evidence or advice that supports a different approach to the one that we’re taking here in Wales.”