this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk that covers the wages, of furloughed workers, affected and around the world. by the coronavirus lockdown — businesses will have to start paying after three nights of rioting contributions, from august. a man — sacked as a police in the us city of minneapolis, officer following the death a former police officer has been of unarmed black man george floyd charged with murder following the death of the unarmed in the us city of minneapolis — has been arrested and charged with third degree murder black man george floyd. and manslaughter — it follows three president trump says consecutive nights of rioting. he's revoking us special treatment of hong kong, after china put forward a new president trump attacks china's security law for the territory. plans to impose new security legislation in hong kong, and says the us will no longer give china has replaced this promised hong kong special treatment. formula of one country, two systems with one country, one system. the uk governement announces changes china has replaced its promised to the scheme that covers the wages, of furloughed workers, formula of one country, tea systems affected by the coronavirus lockdown, businesses will have to start paying contributions, from august. with one country one system. you're watching bbc news. the chancellor has set out details of how employers will have

to contribute to the cost of furoughed workers. rishi sunak announced that businesses will be asked to fund national insurance and employer pension contributions from august. by september, employers will pay 10% of wages for furloughed staff, rising to 20 percent in october. he began today's briefing, bringing us up to date with the latest in the uk. let me begin tonight with the latest figures. 4,043,000 tests have been carried out in the uk including 131,458 test yesterday. 271,222 people have tested positive, an increase of 2095 cases since yesterday. sadly, of those who tested positive for coronavirus across all settings, 38,106 to one people have now died.

that's an increase of 324 fatalities since yesterday. our thoughts as always with the family and friends of those who have lost their lives. today's figures confirm what prime minister has said, we are past the peak, we're flattening the curve. we have protected the nhs and the number of deaths is falling. over the coming weeks, we can now take careful, but deliberate steps to reopen our economy. across the country, office lights will be turned on and windows thrown open. workloads and school uniforms will be taken out, shops and start to hum with activity. as we enter this new phase, things will change. businesses will need to become covid secure to protect staff and customers. we will all need to stay alert as we go about our daily lives and, as britain returns to work,

we need to adapt to the emergency programmes we put in place to bridge through the crisis. because of those programmes, our economic prospects are better than they otherwise would have been. we have provided tens of billions of pounds of tax cuts, tax deferrals, cash grants and discounted loans for businesses. income protection for millions of the self—employed. a strength and safety net to protect millions of our most vulnerable people and ourjob retention scheme has now supported more than a million jobs and over a million businesses. no british government, labour or conservative, has ever done anything like this. i believe it has made a real difference. but as we reopen the economy, there is broad consensus across the political and economic spectrum, the furlough scheme cannot continue indefinitely. two weeks ago, i outlined

the principles of my approach. the furlough scheme will remain open all the way until october and we will ask employers to start contributing as we also introduce flexible following. employees will see no change to their level of support. as promised, i can provide more details today. i believe it is right, in the final phase of this eight month scheme to ask employers to contribute, alongside the taxpayer, towards the wages of their staff. but i understand too that businesses and employers have been through an incredibly difficult time. so, i have decided to ask employers to pay only a modest contribution, introduced slowly over the coming months. injune and july, the scheme will continue as before, with no employer contribution at all. in august, the taxpayer contribution

to the wages of people will stay at 80%. employers will only be asked to pay national insurance and employer pension contributions, which for the average claim, account for just 5% of total employment costs. by september, employers will have had the opportunity to make any necessary changes to the workplaces and business practices. only then, in the final two months of this eight month scheme, will we ask employers to start paying towards the wages of people. in september, taxpayers will pay 70% of the furlough ground with employers contributing 10%. in october, taxpayers will pay 60% and employers will contribute 10%. then after eight months, of this extraordinary intervention of the government stepping in to help pay wages, the scheme will close. the biggest request i have heard from businesses, large and small,

right across our country, is to have the flexibility to decide what is right for them. so, to protectjobs, and help businesses decide how quickly to bring their workforce back, we are introducing a new, more flexible furlough. this is a critical part of our plan to kick—start the economy. the financial security of the furlough scheme has been a relief for many, but at the same time, people want to work. no one wants to be at home on furlough, no one wants to feel unable to contribute. so hmrc and the treasury have worked hard to put the flexible furlough in place, not from august the 1st, as originally planned, but from july the 1st, one month early. from july the 1st, employers will have the maximum possible flexibility to decide on the right arrangements for them and their furloughed staff.

for instance, if you are watching at home and on furlough, your employer could bring you back two days a week and they would pay you for those days as normal, while the furlough scheme will continue to cover you for the other three working days. to allow us to introduce this new flexible furlough from the 1st ofjuly, we will need to close the old scheme to new entrants onjune the 30th. employers wanting to place new employees on the scheme will need to do this by the 10th ofjune to allow them time to complete the minimum furlough period before then. alongside the furlough scheme for employees, our economic response has also supported the self—employed. 2.3 million people have now applied for our income support scheme. i know people have been waiting to hear whether the scheme will be extended and i understand people have been anxious. i can confirm today that the self—employment income

scheme will be extended with applications opening in august for a second and final grant. the final grant will work in the same way as the first did, paid out in a single instalment covering three months worth of average monthly profit. to maintain the sense of fairness, alongside the job retention scheme, the value of the final grant will be 70%, up to a total of £6,570. otherwise, there will be no changes and no further extensions to the schemes, which continue to be some of the most generous in the world. 0ur economic response to coronavirus was designed to keep people in work, protect the incomes of people and support businesses. all to give us the best chance of recovering quickly as the economy reopens. these measures have been on a scale unmatched by any government in recent history.

but i do want to acknowledge that we have not been able to support everyone in the exact way they would want. i understand some people have felt frustrated, but you were not and have not been forgotten. even if you do not qualify for the furlough or self employment schemes, we have provided a wide range of support, from discounted loans, to tax cuts, mortgage holidays and enhanced welfare. now our thoughts, our energies, our resources must turn to looking forward to planning for the recovery. and we will need the dynamism of our whole economy as we fight our way back to prosperity. not everything will look the same as before. it won't be the case that we can simply put the key in the lot, open the door and step into the world as it was injanuary. we will develop new measures to grow the economy, to back business, to boost skills and to help people

thrive in the new post covid world. today, a new national collective effort begins, to reopen our country and kick—start our economy, thank you. thank you chancellor. i would like to take you through the data slides today. the first slide, as ever, provide some data on social distancing and how our response has been to our social distancing guidelines and this is information coming from the office for national statistics opinion and lifestyle survey 21st to the 24th of may and that shows that 88% of adults have avoided contact with older and vulnerable people, that 98% of adults have said that they tried to stay at least two metres away from other people when outside their home. 29% of adults are now using a face covering when outside their home to slow the spread of covid—19 and 39% of adults in employment have

been working from home compared to around 12% last year. again, good evidence of compliance with social distancing measures. the next slide takes us into testing and the number of new cases and as you can see in the top graph, the number of tests undertaken each day has been increasing and that is increased very much during april and into may and you can see that that number continues to be at a level above 100,000. 0n the bottom graph you can see the new confirmed cases that have come out of that testing and you can again see that there is a steady decline in those numbers, particularly noticeable on the seven day rolling average, but as i think the chief scientist said yesterday, the office for national statistics survey of random householders and individuals it showed that there are indeed more cases that are coming forward as part

of this testing programme and now that test and trace is in place, we anticipate that that gap may close between those figures. next slide. now we look at data from hospitals. the first shows the estimated new daily admissions with covid—19 in england, that is the top graph and you can see that there has been a steady decline in the number of new daily admissions since the middle of april. that decline is still there, perhaps slowing a little, but we are still seen that decline. in the bottom graph, you can see data concerning our sickest patients and those require treatment in intensive care unit and require mechanical ventilation and this is expressed as a percentage of our total mechanical ventilator beds occupied by covid—19 patients and you can see that in all four countries, that has been steadily declining since april, again showing the effect of social

distancing measures in our sickest patients. that is a decline, down 13% from a week ago, the 21st of may. the next slide shows more information on hospitalisation, this is people in hospital overall, people in any bed with covid—19. 8287 people in a hospital, down from 9397 last week, a drop of over 1000. the graphs show that on a regional basis, you can see throughout the uk, and the devolved administrations, that there are a steady decline throughout and again as i have said before, the most dramatic decline has been in london, which had the most dramatic peak and the highest peak in april. in the next slide and the final slide, we move to deaths and again

the saddest component of this dataset. you can see that the measure here is the seven day rolling average, which takes out the variation that we see from day to day and particularly reporting variations at weekends and you can see that the seven day rolling average is continuing to decline and the chancellor has provided information on the deaths today, 324 in all settings, deaths confirmed with a positive test. thank you steve. if we turn to questions from the public. we start with will from manchester. during lockdown there has been a drastic fall in c02 emissions and many of the changes to our lifestyles and sacrifices we have made will help tackle climate change. what specifically are the government doing to maintain these low emission rights as lockdown is eased and will these concerns be central to rebuilding the economy? thanks. really important question.

i will say a couple of things, the most obvious and immediate change we have seen is how people are getting around, commuting, seeing people and using cycling and i think that is a trend that hopefully will stick and more people have discovered cycling and it is something that we can all do, it is good for the environment and also good for our health and well—being. to a broader question about climate change and tackling that zero as part of our economic recovery, absolutely. in march which seems like a long time ago we had a budget and in the budget i talked a lot about our future plans for investment and in growth and mentioned a range of different initiatives that we will take forward over the next few years for this agenda, one of which is preserving our natural capital and we have a new nature for climate fund and we will be investing in our environment. i talked about the importance of carbon capture and storage, technology that will take carbon from the air and sequester it underground and we said

that we will invest several hundred million pounds in the next few years in developing that technology and that could benefit thousands of new jobs in places like the north—east and teesside and humberside, whether conditions exist to do something like that and i believe we can be a world leader. it is important now in our change behaviour and we should keep that, but lots of exciting plans for the future as well. steve, do you want to add something? in the nhs we want to reduce emissions and help protect the environment. the plan published we over a year ago, we focused on this, too. 0ne specific example, one of the things we wanted to achieve in that plan was to significantly reduce the number of face—to—face appointments in hospitals, a lot of those can be managed remotely, digitally, on the telephone and by other methods. in doing that we knew we'd cut down the amount of nhs —related transport

people need to use to get to those appointments and we've estimated 5% of traffic during a normal week might be nhs related so that would have a significant impact and it would protect some of the patients we have to see, like respiratory patients, patients with chest disease which can be affected by pollution in the environment. one of the things we seen during the coronavirus crisis over the last month is we have moved very rapidly to implement some of the changes we wanted to make so we have increased the number of remote, digital, telephone consultations, both in hospitals and in general practice and other aspects of community and primary care, and we want to hold onto that, that's something we were going to do anyway. so, as we come out into the new world of managing covid going forward, we want to ensure we keep that approach as much as possible to benefit patients, to do things better for patients, more simply for patients and to protect the environment.

brilliant, thank you. we turn next to simona from eastbourne. simona, thank you. there is a range of measures we have put in place. the various schemes we have will benefit people in different ways. the furlough scheme is there. for those who are self—employed, they have the self employed support income scheme which is helping people as well. for those who may run their own business, we have provided tax cuts and temporary discounted loans to help bridge through the crisis and, of course, crucially, we have strengthened the safety net for those who are most vulnerable in our society with temporary increases to universal credit, to working tax credits, local housing allowance to help with rent payments alongside mortgage holidays and providing councils with a fund to help people

pay their council tax bills if they are facing difficulty. importantly, though, because of the hard work of everyone and the progress we have made, we are, as the prime minister announced, able to start reopening our primary schools from the 1st ofjune, starting with those in the earliest year settings and some of the first couple of years of primary school which will help, allow more people to get back to work, as we can reopen oui’ schools and allow our children to come back to those settings as well. great. if we turn to some questions from the media. first up, faisal islam from the bbc. thank you. in the first instance, is your general message to workers who work for companies without the cash flow to pay even their national insurance and pensions contributions and the self—employed that 100 billion is your limit, and unemployment will spike?

and, then, more generally, to stephen powis, perhaps, what is happening with the assessment of the joint bio—security centre? a lot was made of this by the prime minister when it was first announced that the lockdown was to be loosened. is it at four, is it at three, is it between them? if it hasn't gone down, why are we loosening things up? thanks. in terms of the employer contribution and will employers be able to meet it, a couple of things. first of all, in aggregate, the scheme is generous. eight months is a long time to have the support. if you look at the total employer contribution over that entire period on a typical employee average employee on the scheme, it will amount to the employer making a 5% contribution of the total employment cost they would have otherwise have faced over the last eight months, there are only have to contribute 5% of that if they were there for the entire time so i think that is reasonable and affordable.

that first month you talked about in august, because we are only in that month asking employees to contribute national insurance and the pension cost, we know from the numbers we have, around 40% of all employers currently don't pay those at all because they don't quite qualify, they are not eligible to pay them so 40% of people will not be affected by that change at all which gives those smaller companies an extra month of breathing room. in terms of cash flow, which is a fair question, we are focused around this entire crisis and making sure we provide liquidity support to businesses and we have a range of loan products available which have proved to be successful. 600,000 bounce back loans have been issued to businesses. with the furlough scheme, we have designed it in a way that companies can apply in advance of payroll so they receive the grant from government to help pay their payroll as well

which was a big ask for a business and we were able to design a scheme in a way that did that which will help with cash flow. do you want to take the other question? thank you. 0n the joint bio—security centre, that is currently under development, it is setting itself up with advice from various government departments. i know it is feeding its information even at this early stage into the four chief medical for subs, who have to think about alert levels across the country is in the uk. from the nhs point of view, if i can speak from the nhs point of view, as national medical director, one of the key things we can ensure is that we are linked into the joint bio—security centre so that any changes in alert levels or any changes in the early warnings around the virus can be used by the nhs in determining its planning going forward. so we need to be able to respond

as we did so magnificently in april. if we see the change in infection, the nhs needs to do that again so it's important we link into the centre so that we have that dialogue and understand when we might need to adapt what we are doing. anything to follow up on? can i check that 100 billion number, is that roughly what we are looking at for the total cost of the two schemes over eight months? and to dr powis, what has gone on with the testing numbers? we didn't have people tested numbers for six days, have you sorted out the problem? the office for budget responsibility have provided a range of estimates which i would point you to and we publish a weekly calculator or projection of where we are in the scheme and total claims and it is difficult now to say what the aggregate cost over the entire life will be

because now we have introduced part time furloughing for the last few months of this scheme forjuly, that adjusts working patterns, bring people back from fellow into work, and it's difficult to predict how that will work so i can't give your precise estimate but i'd refer you to the 0br numbers which you referenced which are probably the best estimate we have at the moment from anyone who has looked at this in detail. i cannot give you an answer on the testing numbers but testing is increasing all the time. and this week we have started adding the antibody test, the test that tells you whether you have had the virus, rather than if you have got it, and that is being rolled out now in hospitals and health care facilities as we speak. brilliant. thank you. if we can turn next to ed conway from sky. thank you. it feels like a big moment because it is the moment you are beginning to take the uk off this extraordinary support scheme.

is it fair to say in economic terms this is where the easy bit ends and the tough bit begins? so, unemployment rises and so on. and how tough a period to the british people need to prepare themselves for? if i can ask another question supplementary to that, you are calling this the flexible furlough scheme which raises a bit of a question. in the event there is a second spike in the virus involving some more lockdown measures, will you undertake to switch the furlough scheme back on? 0r once it is over, it is over? thank you. i think, after yourfirst question about difficulty, many businesses already have been facing an enormous amount of difficulty. many people have been facing an enormous amount of difficulty. you asked about unemployment, despite this being an extraordinary intervention we have put in place, we can't protect every single job and every single business. i have aimed and try to make

the scheme as generous as possible in terms of its duration and flexibility, the contributions we are asking, to try to protect as many of those jobs as possible and people in the budget or bank of england or the 0br, they've talked about the fact the scheme has achieved that aim and it will mean we are in a better place than we would have been otherwise. i agree with you, there will be hardship ahead for many. that rests heavily on my shoulders. i am very conscious of that. we are working very hard and i will work very hard to make sure all of those who lose theirjobs as a result of what is happening that i'm working as hard as i can to get them back into work in good work as quickly as possible. in regards to the scheme, this scheme as it stands in the way it is designed, it'll end in october but if you look around the world but how long people have put these in place for, that compares very favourably. eight months is a generous and long period of time and allows companies

across the uk to slowly ramp back up and gives them the best possible support that it can to do that. hello there, the blue sky and sunshine behind me an indication of what is to come as we head into the weekend. it remains dry and settled and we will close out the month of may with high pressure influencing the story, a bit more of a breeze coming off the north sea but there will be lots of sunshine to look out for and temperatures will certainly start to respond. a southeasterly breeze and a little fresher along that east coast here we will likely see temperatures peaking at 18 — 21 degrees and we could see 25 or 75 fahrenheit. clinging on to the east coast and not the way on sunday and lighter winds and perhaps

temperature is a degree or sell higher particularly across the east coast and in the southwest we might see highs of 27 degrees. if you have not already worked it out it looks as though this weekend might be dry and sunny and so pretty warm.

and sunny but noticeably cooler from 00:29:35,384 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 wednesday onwards.