Coronavirus lockdown: PM warns UK faces 'medical disaster' without action

The UK faces a "medical and moral disaster" unless tough action is taken now to stop the spread of coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.

He told MPs there was "no alternative" but to introduce a national lockdown - which is due to begin on Thursday - to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed.

MPs will vote on the plans in the Commons on Wednesday.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused the PM of a "catastrophic failure of leadership" over the pandemic.

Sir Keir - who started calling for a short lockdown or circuit-breaker in October - criticised the government's "inaction", saying it meant the lockdown would be "harder, longer and more damaging than it needed to be".

The prime minister was speaking in the Commons two days after announcing the lockdown at a televised press conference.

Outlining the measures again, along with details of further support for businesses and jobs, Mr Johnson told MPs the government would double its support from 40% to 80% of trading profits for the self-employed from next month - as well as extending the furlough scheme.

Following earlier confusion over whether the furlough scheme would apply UK-wide, the PM suggested it would be available for parts of the UK where there is a Covid-19 lockdown in the future.

He said the latest national restrictions would not be a return to the "full-scale lockdown of March and April", but he apologised for the "anguish" the restrictions would cause people and businesses.

Mr Johnson also warned that without action "the sick would be turned away because there was no room in our hospitals," with doctors and nurses potentially "forced to choose which patients to treat, who would live and who would die".

On Monday, the UK recorded 18,950 new confirmed cases of coronavirus and 136 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

The PM said the lockdown regulations would end at 00:01 GMT on 2 December, with MPs given a vote on what should replace them.

Mr Johnson insisted he had been right to "try every possible option" to get the virus under control at a local level before imposing a nationwide lockdown - and denied that the UK had been slower to act than other countries in Europe.

Boris Johnson is stuck in between two groups.

First, MPs on his own side who have become institutionally cross, but in the main, reluctantly swallow the government's plans, flaws and all.

And second, MPs opposite who are frustrated at the government's handling of things, but don't disagree enough with the central features of the government's plan to try to block it.

And so, the prime minister can proceed with lockdown 2.0, pleasing no one, but with not much standing in his way.

Read more from Laura here.

The PM said the government was planning a "steady but massive expansion in the deployment of quick, turnaround tests" - with the Army poised to help roll them out - and there was a "real prospect" of a vaccine in the first quarter of next year.

He added: "I believe that these technical developments taken together, will enable us to defeat the virus by the spring - as humanity has defeated every other infectious disease - and I am not alone in this optimism."

Mr Johnson faces a rebellion from several senior Tory MPs, including Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, who has asked the government to publish a "full impact assessment" on the economic and health consequences of lockdown ahead of Wednesday's vote.

Sir Keir confirmed Labour would support the government but called for the four-week period to be used to "fix the broken track-and-trace system and give control to local authorities".

He said government scientific advisers had recommended an urgent two to three-week circuit break lockdown on 21 September but that the PM had "ignored that advice" for 40 days.

He accused him of being "too slow and behind the curve", putting "what he hoped would happen ahead of what is happening".

Elsewhere in the UK, Scotland's five-level system of Covid restrictions has now come into force.

In Wales, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said two households in Wales will be able to form a bubble and meet at home after the 17-day firebreak ends on 9 November.

Schools in Northern Ireland have reopened after an extended half-term break, while other restrictions including the closure of pubs, bars and restaurants continue until 13 November.

In other key developments: