UK Covid live news: Nicola Sturgeon eases some restrictions on outdoor mixing in Scotland | Politics

• George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor, has criticised the main revenue-raising measure in last week’s budget – the corporation tax increase. Speaking at an Institute for Government online event, Osborne said:

I don’t want to criticise Rishi Sunak – he is doing a pretty good job in difficult circumstances.

But I would say the idea you can increase Britain’s business tax by 25% and there will be no consequence – I don’t think even he would claim that either – is a mistake.

Tax increases have consequences and we will wait to see – if this tax increase does indeed go ahead – what impact it will have.

I think you have got to be careful as a country what signals you are sending around the world to a world that certainly doesn’t have much time to look into the UK tax code.

Osborne said he was worried if the “basic message” to come from the budget was that the UK was moving to a “very high rate of corporation tax”. He explained:

You’re just sending a message around the world that Britain is not a particularly enterprising or pro-business place at the very moment when you want to be encouraging that in a recovery.

That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.

A vote of no confidence in Scotland’s deputy first minister, John Swinney, has been scheduled for tomorrow, but already looks set to fall as the Scottish Greens say they will not support it, PA Media reports. PA says:

The Scottish Tories tabled the motion two weeks ago as a threat to the position of Swinney. They hoped he would release legal advice given to the Scottish government before it decided to concede the judicial review brought by Alex Salmond after its botched handling of complaints against him.

MSPs twice voted to compel the Scottish government to release the documents.

Swinney released some of the legal advice, but not to the satisfaction of the Scottish Tories, whose leader Douglas Ross decided to press on with his bid to oust the deputy first minister.

The vote has been scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, but within minutes of the announcement of its going ahead, the Scottish Greens destroyed any hopes of removing Swinney, describing the vote as “opportunistic political theatre”.

These are from the Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group.

The proportion of pupils in England being taught on-site last week rose to nearly a fifth, PA Media reports. PA says:

Overall, 19% of state school pupils were in class on 4 March, up from 18% on 25 February, according to figures from the Department for Education.

The rise came in the week before all pupils were allowed to return to school.

Some 28% of primary school pupils were on-site last week, compared with 27% in the previous week.

Overall, 6% of secondary school students were in class last week – the same proportion as on 25 February.

The latest UK Covid statistics are out, and on the government’s dashboard. Here are the key figures.

• The UK has recorded 231 further deaths. That is well up on yesterday’s figure (65), but numbers are always suppressed after a weekend because reporting gets delayed for administrative reasons. Today’s today is much lower than the total for last Tuesday (343). And the total number of deaths over the last week is down 33.2% on the previous seven days.

• The UK has recorded 5,766 new cases. Week on week, cases are down 24.5%.

• 215,273 people in the UK had their first dose of a vaccine yesterday, and 38,788 people had their second dose.

Yesterday Downing Street said that, if a pupil tests positive with a lateral flow test (LFT) conducted at home, but subsequently tests negative with a (more accurate, and laboratory-processed) PCR tests, they will be able to end self-isolation and return to school.

But if the LFT is conducted at school, then the pupil has to carry on self-isolating even if a subsequent PCR tests comes out negative. In these circumstances, a negative PCR test cannot trump or reverse a positive LFT test.

Different rules apply because school counts as a “controlled environment”, where supposedly the LFTs will be more accurate because they are being conducted under supervision.

Rachel Clarke, the doctor and author, has described this as “madness”.

In the Commons MPs are on the final day of the budget debate, and Theresa May, the former Conservative prime minister, has used her speech to criticise the government for not doing more to encourage R&D (research and development). She said:

If we want an innovation economy, what we need to do is to invest in and support investment in areas which encourage growth and innovation, and that means R&D.

Now we are going to see another consultation on R&D tax credits, I think that’s the third consultation in three years. I have to say to [Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, who opened today’s debate] stop consulting, just get on and do something – extend the definition of R&D expenditure, increase the rate, but act – what we need is investment in innovation, not in chief executive’s jacuzzis.

May, who represents Maidenhead, which is near Heathrow, also said she continued “to fail to understand why the Treasury, and the Business Department I fear as well, seem institutionally incapable of understanding the significance of the aviation sector for jobs and for our economy.”

In his evidence to the Commons science committee Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said that the way test and trace was able to track down someone with the P1 Brazilian variant, even when a form had gone missing, was impressive. (See 11.35am.)

In the comments a reader points out that the key breakthrough came when the person involved called in to NHS 111 themselves. Dr Susan Hopkins from Public Health England revealed this at a press conference at the end of last week.

From Edouard Mathieu from the Our World in Data website

From Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister

Northern Ireland has recorded two further coronavirus deaths and 240 new cases.

A week ago today there were also two deaths, but 149 new cases.

This chart, from the dashboard for the health department in Northern Ireland, shows how the fall in deaths in Northern Ireland has started to plateau. The green line shows the seven-day rolling average.