Members about the pandemic and the u. K. s response. This was also the first time the Prime Minister faced questions from new Labour Party Leader keir starmer. Sir hoyle we now come to questions for the Prime Minister. I would like to welcome the Prime Minister back to his rightful place. There is an engagement question. It is good to be back even though i have been away longer than i intended to. I pay tribute to the 107 nhs, 29 care workers and those who sadly died from coronavirus. I know this and perceives of the house is with family and friends, my thanks to thomass hospital for the care that i received. I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others in addition to duties in the house, i will have further such meetings. I now call simon. Thank you, i would like to welcome the Prime Minister back to where he belongs and im sure the house would join me in congratulating him and his fiancee on the birth of their friend. On coronavirus, tourism is crucial to the economy of the southwest. While i am asking visitors to come back later once the lockdown has in did i want to make sure the tourism survive so we can be open to business at the earliest opportunity. Can the Prime Minister assure me the further and flexible Financial Support is coming to protect this crucial industry . Yes indeed, i can and i think the honorable friend for what he is doing for tourism and we added 1. 3 million to help the Tourism Industry and that is the priority of the government to suppress this disease further as we do that and get our economy going and to encourage tourism across the whole country and east and in particular. The leader of the opposition can i welcome the Prime Minister back to his place in state is good to see him back in parliament. Can i congratulate him publicly on the birth of their son. When the Prime Minister returns to work a week ago monday many were looking at the apparent success of the government approach. Yesterday we learned tragically that at least 29,427 people in the uk have lost their lives to this dreadful virus. That is the highest number in europe, the second highest in the world, that is not success or apparent success. Prime minister tell us how on earth did it come to this . Every day is a tragedy and he is right to draw attention to the appalling statistics not just in this country but around the world. I echo the question that we heard from professor David Steagall and others that this stage i dont think International Comparisons and data is yet to draw the conclusions we want. What i can tell him is at every stage we took the decisions we did buy an overriding principle to save lives and protect our nhs and i believe there will be a time to look at what decisions we took and what we could have taken different positions but i have no doubt that what people want us to do now is as i said just now to suppress this disease and keep suppressing this disease and work on getting the countrys economy back on its feet and i look forward to working with colleagues to do just that. The argument of International Comparisons cant be made to do International Comparisons. Im afraid many people are concluding the answer is the uk slowed its lockdown, slow on testing, slow on tracing and protective equipment. Yesterdays figures show happily in hospitals the death falling, deaths in care homes go up but the press conference last night the deputy chief scientific advisor said, quote, what this shows us is there is a real issue we need to come to grips with in relation to what is happening in care homes. I couldnt agree more. After the Health Secretary declared the we were in a Health Crisis i asked the primacy why hasnt the government come to grips with this already . Mister speaker he is quite right to look at the crisis in kent and say the epidemic going on in care homes is something i bitterly regret and we have been working hard for weeks on and a huge amount of effort has been gone into by tens of thousands of people to get the right ppe to care homes and encourage workers in care homes to understand what is needed and i can tell that hes not writing what he just said about the state of the epidemic when he looks at the figures, in the last few days there has been a palpable improvement. We must hope that continues and we will ensure that it does continue. I am grateful for that. I was using slides the government put up at its press conference last night which shows sadly what i said with a lack on the 20 fourth of april because of a reporting position that suddenly in care homes deaths have been rising every time they are reported by the ons and i heard before that numbers are falling a week ago sunday, that is not borne out by these slides. On the thirtieth of april the government claimed success in meeting its 130 tests a day target. As the Prime Minister knows the number has fallen back. On monday there were just 84,000 tests, 24,000 available tests were not used. What does the Prime Minister think was so special about the thirtieth of april that testing that day was so high . The right honorable gentleman was right last week when he paid tribute to the amazing work of the nhs, the Logistics Team and everyone involved in getting from 2000 tests a day in march to 130,000 by the end of april. The capacity exceeds demand. And the ambition clearly gets 2000 a day. And to go even higher. And the whole house will now testing a fantastic testing regime is going to be critical to longterm economic recovery. I am glad the Prime Minister said the target is 200,000 tests a day by the end of this month. Just having a target isnt a strategy. What is needed is testing and isolation. That is the strategy. Contact tracing, what is happening in the uk was abandoned in midmarch. We were told this was because it was, quote, not an appropriate mechanism. Deputy chief medical officer said it had to do with testing capacity. Primus to clarify the why was Contact Tracing abandon in and midmarch had not restarted sooner . It is readily apparent to everybody who studied the situation that scientists would confirm the difficulty in midmarch was tracing capacity as he rightly says in the containment phase of the epidemic that capacity was no longer useful relevance and the transmission from individuals within the uk meant it exceeded our capacity. The value of the tested tracking and tracing operations, as we come out of the epidemic, we get the new cases done we will have a team that will genuinely be able to get hundreds of thousands across the country and drive down the epidemic. In a nutshell, it is easier to do now that we have built up a team on the way out as it was as the epidemic took off and most people with common sense can see the difficulties we had at the time. The Prime Minister confirmed the capacity problem. I wish the government will, we all want that to succeed and we support that, hopefully succeeding. Can i turn to protective equipment where clearly there are ongoing problems. This week the bma service said 48 of doctors had to buy their protective equipment for themselves or rely on donations, that is clearly an acceptable and it is obvious that this problem is going to get more acute as the Government Asks people to return to work. We will need a very Robust National plan for protec to become and, primus to reassure the public they wont be after a return to work until that plan is in place . Prime minister . Yes, i can and i share his frustration about ppe and the frustration people have felt across the house in the country for the difficulties we have had in supplying ppe to those who need it but i paid tribute to the work of hundreds of thousands of people involved in the logistics, of billions of items across the country in a timely way as there will be no national stockouts of any ppe item and we are engaged in a massive plan to ramp up domestic supply in your familiar with what lord dyson is at work so to get to the final question we are ready in the longterm to satisfy the domestic needs of this country. On sunday . I was going to come to the plan. Im grateful to the Prime Minister for that indication. There are millions with children, struggling with caring. If they return to work or children are to return to school they need reassurance. Reassurance would be safe to do so and that means they need to know the governments plan for the next stage. Will the Prime Minister given that reassurance by setting out the plan as he says or will he come to this house to present the planet have questions . It will be a statement to the house, with what we propose and the courtesy of why it is happening on sunday, we have to be sure the data is going to support our ability to do this. That data is coming in over the next, we want to get going with some of these measures. It would be people have an idea for what is coming the following day, that is the best time to do it. We hope they will debate and interrogate on that matter . Thank you. Lockdown rules permit people to travel to work if their jobs are not done from home. Some have faced criticism and pressure not to do that including announcements the London Underground saying they should not be in the system us they are key workers. Will primus to ask the mayor to restore Public Counsel capacity in london so my constituents can travel safely and keep as much is the economy and going as possible . Absolutely right that a crucial part of our success in getting transport to run safely is running a more expansive service so that people can observe social distancing rules. There must be, we will come to this on sunday next week as well. There must be mitigations to help people who for reasons cannot use mass transit and there will be a huge amount of planning helping people to get to work other than by mass transit. This will be should be a new golden age for cycling. We now go across the leader of the s p. I would like to start i welcoming the Prime Minister back to parliament, i wish every health and happiness, the uk confirmed the death toll, no standard cluster, officially the second highest in the world and there are some estimates putting the figure higher. We faced our own heartbreaking and devastating outbreak of katko covid19 in the last few days. The worst thing we could do is ease up the locks dont too soon and a second peak of this gent deadly virus to protect our citizens, the lockdown must remain in place as long as needed. People might want to travel during the bad weather but we are joined in reminding everyone that nonessential travel is not permitted and does he agree with me the Prime Minister of scotland for the best medical and scientific advice, not politics of posturing. Prime minister. Indeed, mister speaker. The last few weeks have shown the ability to deliver a very clear message for our people and it has been extremely helpful and i can say that we will be working with the government in scotland as we will be working with your unions and business to make sure we get the lockdown plan completely right and what he said is common sense and it will be an Economic Disaster if we were to pursue a relaxation of these measures in such a way as to trigger a second spike. On that point i am in complete agreement with him. Im grateful for the Prime Ministers answer. I congratulate my colleagues on that shared agenda but his own government ministers are not following his own advice. Instead of working with the Scottish Government the secretary of state is in making political arguments about the constitution rather than scientific ones about saving life and hes not the only one. This is not the time for opportunistic politics. It is a time we all must Work Together to protect nhs and save life. We anticipate the Prime Minister will be making a televised address sunday concerning using of lockdown. This cannot be undertaken without the cooperation of all our government. We must end this period of mixed messaging from the uk government. Will primus to commit today that the substance of his address will be fully agreed to so that all our governments continue with this vitally important work of saving life . I forgot to thank the right honorable gentlemen, i forgot to say that. I will be marked down and i share the right honorable gentlemen, the outlines of this are attracting widest consensus and i am delighted by his offering a prohibition on political arguments about the constitution and that would be warmly welcomed across the country. We go across to andrew. Thank you very much and welcome to the Prime Minister and my congratulations to him. My right honorable friends will now we are suffering a perfect storm by the Global Oil Crisis crash in the lockdown. This is a moment of real danger with the prospect of tens of thousands of job losses, and investments by this party or we welcomed more action to ensure Energy Security and the future for this industry which is key to delivering that 0 by 2050. Can my right honorable friend promise to do that as soon as possible and commit the uk government, injuring a future for thousands of workers . I think my honorable friend, all the campaigning for the oil and gas industry and learning with which he speaks on that, i can assure him the secretary of state for Business Energy and clean growth is actively engaged in pursuing this with the sector trade association. Going across to mike. I welcome the Prime Minister back to his place on my birthday and covering my constituency, that steps onto the National Challenge providing essential services for vulnerable residents and businesses in this crisis. The government promised to do whatever it takes to compensate councils across the country. Millions of pounds short of the costs so far, billions nationally. Will primus to fund the promise to not return to the dyer days of austerity . Mister speaker, i can certainly tell him the government has no intention of returning to the a word. That is not going to be what i can tell him is we put in 3. 2 billion according to the most vulnerable in this difficult time and we will continue to make sure the funding gets through to those who need it but the crucial thing my colleagues will understand is the more effectively we can suppress this virus and the faster we can restart our economy the better our chances of getting the funding we all need to the poorest and neediest in our society. Raymond . Im delighted to see the Prime Minister back at the dispatch box, i congratulate him on that. My constituent jackie bottom, ashley was 64, with a small Church Service applying social distancing. If ashley were to be cremated, has been buried under current guidelines that is not possible. Can this anomaly be urgently addressed, to bury their loved ones, applying social distancing are able to do so . Yes indeed and i thank my honorable friend and extent deepest sympathies to friends and family of his constituent ashley. We are asking councils to help people to attend without reaching the rules on social distancing. We think that is the right balance to strike. Justin mothers. Thank you. When Companies Use millions of pounds of public money to furlough staff at the same time as handing out redundancy notices for the workers and taxpayer. It is concerning the report suggests it may be wound down after june. Would it be an obscenity, government in action, people whose jobs we have been trying to save end of redundant anyway . With slogans behind them. The further scheme has been one of the outstanding provisions the government has put in, huge numbers of people, the security that they need and obviously what we want is to make sure people continue to feel security but we also want to enable people safely and securely to go back to work and earn their pay package that they want to do. My welcoming congratulations to my honorable friend and asked him if he agrees about the huge role to play in rebuilding our economy, has he considered how he might incentivize them to offer the occasion in support to keep businesses and entrepreneurs . I think him very much for all the work he does to champion the cause of education. This remains unchanged across the country with infrastructure and education above all including world leading universities that are formulating vaccines against this disease and the skills that our economy for a sustained economic recovery. Marie black, discussing universal basic income i was glad to see them recognized. Let me ask the Prime Minister what plans he has and if not can he explain why people with a disability require less support . What we have done is remove the 7 day waiting time and i am glad she pays tribute to the big increase in universal credit of 1040 pounds. I think what everybody wants to see is not just people taking universal credit. What they want to see is a or sensible program attracting the widest possible support to continue to suppress the disease and allow our economy to start up again. I have been impressed by businesses and individuals across the constituency buying lending devices so children can learn at home. This initiative is enhanced by 100 million written by the education secretary. The select committee suggested when schools do go back and capture premiums to close the gap between those most disadvantaged and left behind and peers who are better o