Boris Johnson news - live: PM misses Rishi Sunak’s jobs announcement as No 10 denies rift with chancellor

Students might be asked to stay on campus over Christmas, government admits

Students may be asked to remain on university campuses over the Christmas holidays due to the risk of infecting family members, the health secretary has admitted, following a major coronavirus outbreak in a university’s student halls, Clea Skopeliti reports.

Some 600 students at the University of Glasgow have been forced to self-isolate in two of the university’s halls of residence after an outbreak which has seen 124 test positive for the coronavirus.

Responding to questions about whether students will be able to spend Christmas with their families, Matt Hancock said on Thursday: “I don’t want to have a situation like that [students not being able to return home for Christmas due to risk of infection relatives] and I ever much hope we can avoid it."

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, the health secretary repeatedly underlined that the government’s goal was to suppress the virus - which “includes not spreading between the generations”, while protecting the economy and education system.

After being pressed on the question of students returning to their family homes during the winter break, Mr Hancock admitted he’s "learned not to rule things out”, while adding that it wasn’t a government goal to have students remain on campus over the festive period.

Dominic Raab says UK rejects results of ‘rigged’ Belarus election, announces sanction plans

In a statement to the Commons, the foreign secretary said the UK does “not accept the results of this rigged election” and condemns “the thuggery deployed against the Belarussian people”, as he announced sanctions for human rights violations and increased financial support for rights groups.

It is "absolutely critical" that those responsible are held to account, he added, explaining: "We are willing to join the EU in adopting targeted sanctions against those responsible for the violence, the repression and the vote-rigging, although the EU process has now been delayed in Brussels.

“Given that delay, given [President Alexander Lukashenko's] fraudulent inauguration, I have directed the [foreign office] sanction team to prepare Magnitsky sanctions for those responsible for the serious human rights violations and we're co-ordinating with the United States and Canada to prepare appropriate listings as a matter of urgency.”

Dominic Raab said he had doubled financial support to £1.5m for human rights groups, independent media outlets and community groups in the next two years, including £800,000 of support for journalists.

Pledging to “apply all the tools at our disposal to hold Lukashenko and his regime to account”, Mr Raab added that if the authorities in Belarus “fail to respond” the government will “consider further actions with our international partners”.

Boris Johnson warns ‘things will be tough’ as furlough scheme replaced

As Rishi Sunak presented the government’s economic plan for the winter to MPs amid a resurgences in cases of Covid-19, the prime minister also appealed to the country “to work together” and reduce the R rate of the virus, our political correspondent Ashley Cowburn reports.

Acknowledging that large numbers of jobs will be lost with the withdrawal of the furlough, Mr Sunak warned: “I can’t save every business, I can’t save every job. No chancellor could.”

Responding to his statement, Boris Johnson said: “The chancellor is being totally realistic with people about the prospect of the economy - things will be tough.”

Labour’s shadow foreign secretary presses Raab on bringing sanctions against Lukashenko

Labour’s shadow foreign secretary has pressed Dominic Raab on whether the government is considering bringing sanctions against Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko.

“We very much support [Mr Raab's] efforts to work with allies to impose Magnitsky sanctions on those involved,” Lisa Nandy told MPs.

“Can he tell us whether he has had discussions with counterparts about including Lukashenko in these measures and whether he has made any progress in ensuring that corruption is in the scope of the Magnitsky legislation that this House recently passed?”

Mr Raab replied: “In relation to, [Ms Nandy] mentioned sanctions, we're considering the whole range of potential individuals.

“And she mentioned also corruption - she'll know that corruption is not currently covered by the Magnitsky sanctions, they deal with a slew of the most serious human rights violations, although they do cover those who might profit from those human rights abuses.

“But I can tell her I am looking very carefully at how we extend the next step of the Magnitsky sanctions to corruption and similar types of offences. I'll say more about that in due course.”

Arts sector faces ‘grim future’, Culture Committee chairman warns

The arts sector faces a “grim future”, with some organisations “facing extinction”, even with the chancellor’s latest economic support scheme, the Culture Committee chairman has said.

“We welcome this economy-wide intervention from the chancellor,” Julian Knight, the chairman of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said.

“However, it still leaves many hundreds of thousands of workers in events, arts and cultural parts of the economy with a grim future.

“The truth is, three times as many people in these sectors are currently on furlough than the national average, which suggests that the Job Support Scheme may not be able to stop unprecedented redundancies and many organisations from facing extinction.”

Meanwhile, Music Venue Trust said in a statement that Rishi Sunak’s speech in the Commons did not address the need for extra support in the arts, which is facing different restrictions to other sectors.

“This is a very specific challenge to the live music industry, which is not permitted to trade by government restrictions but has not seen any sector support directly offered in this financial intervention,” the organisation said.

“The live music industry faces a crisis which is not of its own making. It is vital that it survives this crisis.

“The challenge is manageable with sensible, targeted interventions by the government. Music Venue Trust awaits the outcome of the Cultural Recovery Fund to assess if that is the action required.”

Our reporter, Sabrina Barr, has put together a brief guide to the new Job Support Scheme below:

Downing Street distances itself from defence secretary’s ‘illegal wars’ accusation

Downing Street has distanced itself from the defence secretary’s suggestion that UK military interventions under the last Labour government amounted to “illegal wars”.

In a heated debate in the Commons over the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, Ben Wallace claimed “illegal wars” instigated by Labour contributed to a legal “mess” faced by British troops.

A spokesperson for Boris Johnson said on Thursday that the defence secretary had been expressing a “personal view” when he spoke at the despatch box.

Under then-prime minister Tony Blair, the UK entered into major military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq - with the latter being particularly controversial.

“There have been long-held views on this issue across the political spectrum and the defence secretary was giving his own personal view,” the prime minister’s spokesperson said.

“Neither the government nor the Chilcot inquiry expressed a view on whether or not the UK's participation in the war was legal.”

Mr Wallace’s comments came during an exchange with John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, who accused the government of bringing in a “legal presumption against prosecution for torture, war crimes, for crimes against humanity”.

The defence secretary replied: “Much of the mess we are having to come and clean up today is because of your illegal wars, your events in the past... and to put up straw men and make wild allegations that are wholly inaccurate and disputed by much more learned people than him, I think it a disservice to our troops and is all about making an excuse for not supporting this Bill.”

No 10 denies rift between Johnson and Sunak as PM stays away from jobs announcement

Downing Street has denied any rift between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak after the prime minister chose not to attend the announcement of the chancellor’s Winter Economy Plan.

Prime ministers traditionally sit alongside the chancellor in the Commons for budgets and mini-budgets to show support for the measures.

However, Mr Johnson chose to visit police recruits in Northamptonshire on Thursday instead while Mr Sunak delivered his statement, which replaced the autumn budget.

Our political editor, Andrew Woodcock, has the full story below:

Will Rishi Sunak’s new job support scheme be enough to avert mass unemployment?

Our economics editor, Ben Chu, has taken a look at how Rishi Sunak’s new Job Support Scheme compares to the furlough system it replaced.

Ben writes:

“Even before the latest restrictions, official forecasts were projecting a possibility of joblessness shooting up to 4 million by early next year as the furlough scheme ended. Will the new system help avert such a disaster for the jobs market? The answer is that it’s impossible to know for sure.”

You can read his full analysis below:

If you missed the chancellor’s statement earlier today, you can find it in full below: