The latest headlines for big sinews. Some of twitter is top users have had their accounts hacked urging hello again, and welcome to wednesday in parliament. Borisjohnson agrees to an inquiry into the pandemic, but is he prepared for the next one . Has the Prime Minister actually read this report that sets out the reasonable worst Case Scenario and tells the government what it needs to do about it in the next six weeks . Has he read it . Mr speaker, i am of course aware of the report and we are of course. We are of course taking every reasonable step to prepare this country for a second spike. Also in this programme, the home secretary says too many people are arriving in the uk illegally on small boats. What i would say and i will be very clear about it, these numbers are just shocking, theyre appalling, and theyre unacceptably high. And why shoppers in wales wont have to wear face masks. But first Prime Ministers questions, and another question time dominated by the governments handling of the pandemic. Borisjohnson agreed in principle to hold an independent inquiry but not yet. The Prime Minister was also pressed by the labour leader, sir keir starmer, on whether he had learnt the lessons of a report which warned about 120,000 possible new coronavirus deaths in a second wave of infections this winter. The report was clear july and august must be a period of intense preparation, ie now. Can the Prime Minister make clear that he intends to implement the recommended actions in this report in full and at speed . Mr speaker, not only are we getting on with implementing the preparations for a potential new spike, but he will know that the government is engaged in record investments in the nhs. £34 billion. What i think the house may not realise isjust in the last year since this government has been in office, there are no 12,000 more nurses in the nhs, 6000 more doctors, and it was thanks to their hard work, thanks to the hard work of the entire nhs that we were able to prevent our Health Service from being overwhelmed this spring and we will take steps to ensure that it is not overwhelmed this winter as well. One of the key recommendations in this report commissioned by the Governments Office for science is that testing and tracing capacity will need to be significantly expanded to cope with increased demands over the winter. The reality is this. Trace and track is not working as promised as it stands today. The report makes clear in needs to be significantly expanded to cope with the risks of autumn or winter. What assurance can the Prime Minister give that the system will be fit for both purposes and the timeframe envisaged in this report, ie by this september . Mrspeakeronce again, he attacks the test and trace operation which is working at absolutely unprecedented scale, and 144,000 people across the country, 144,000 people across the country have now agreed to self isolate to stop the spread of the virus, and i can certainly give the house the assurance that our test and trace system is as good as or better than any other system anywhere in the world and yes, it will play a vital. It will play a vital part in ensuring that we do not have a second spike this winter. But i have to ask in light of the last few questions, has the Prime Minister actually read this report that sets out the reasonable worst Case Scenario and tells the government what it needs to do about it in the next six weeks . Has he read it . Mr speaker, i am of course aware of the report and we are of course. We are of course taking every reasonable step to prepare this country for a second spike. Borisjohnson said keir starmer should support what the government was doing. Instead of endlessly knocking the confidence of the people of this country, knocking their confidence in test and trace, knocking their confidence in our schools and the safety of our schools, and knocking our confidence in our transport network. Now is the time for him to decide whether he backs the government or not. Keir starmer it is perfectly possible to support track and trace and point out the problems. And standing up every week saying its a stunning success is kidding no one. That isnt giving people confidence in the system. They would like the Prime Minister to stand up and say there are problems and this is what im going to do about them. Not this rhetoric about stunning success when it is obviously not true. Finally, this afternoon. This afternoon, Prime Minister, im meeting the families of the covid 19 bereaved families forjustice group, a group of hundreds of families whove lost loved ones. They will be listening to the Prime Ministers answers today. So what would the Prime Minister like to say to them . Prime minister. Mr speaker, ijoin with i think every member of the house in mourning the loss of everybody who has died in this epidemic. We will do absolutely everything we can to protect our country and to stop a second spike, but what he has to decide is whether he wants to back that programme or not because one day, he says its safe to go back to school. The next day, hes taking the line of the unions. One day, theyre supporting our economic programme. The next day, theyre saying our stamp duty cut is unacceptable bung. One day, they say they accept the result of the brexit referendum. The next day, today, theyre going to tell their troops to do the exact opposite. He needs to make up his mind which brief hes going to take today. Because at the moment, mr speaker, hes got more briefs than calvin klein. Were getting on were getting on with delivering on our agenda for the country, getting this country through this pandemic, and taking it forward the acting lib dem leader kept up his push for an inquiry. Under this Prime Minister, we suffered one of the worst death rates in the world and europes worst death rate for health and care workers. Previously, hes refused my demand for immediate inquiry, immediate independent inquiry, saying its too soon. Even though back in 2003, he voted for an independent inquiry into the iraq warjust months after the conflict started. If he still rejects an immediate inquiry, will he instead commit in principle to a future Public Inquiry . Yes or no . Prime minister. Mr speaker as i have told the house several times, i do not believe that now in the middle of combating still as we are a pandemic is the right moment to devote huge amounts of official time to an inquiry, but of course mr speaker we will seek to learn the lessons of this pandemic in the future, and certainly we will have an independent inquiry into what happened. The snp focused on life after brexit warning of a possible power grab with the uk government imposing lower food quality standards on scotland. We know this government is undertaking a full scale assault on devolution. A brexit settlement scotland rejected, imposed on scotland. An immigration system scotland rejected, imposed on scotland. A decade of tory governance scotland rejected, imposed on scotland. It is no wonder the first ministers Approval Ratings are three times that of this Prime Minister. Effective leadership and respecting the will of the people contrasted with the bumbling shambles coming from westminster. I find it extraordinary for him to attack unelected bureaucrats for any role they may have in scotland when his proposal is to hand back the powers that we are going, that this place is going to be transferring to scotland back to brussels where they are neither elected nor accountable to the people of scotland. So, i really dont know what he means. The Prime Minister. Earlier at question time, borisjohnson admitted he couldnt wave a magic wand to save everyjob affected by the crisis, despite last weeks £30 billion package from the chancellor. As part of that package, a temporary cut in vat has come into force, allowing firms in the food, drink, and hospitality sectors to slash prices. The treasury estimates households could save £160 on average from the cut from 20 to 5 . But not all firms will pass on the benefit a point raised when rishi sunak appeared before mps on the treasury committee. Moving on to the changes to vat, is there a risk with those changes that it does not pass through to the consumer and effectively the £4. 1 billion earmarked for the cost are to vat effectivelyjust becomes an extra grant for those sectors . Look, i obviously am not going to be able to sit here and direct the pricing of every single business in the country and that when be right or appropriate. That would not be right or appropriate. But i think throughout this crisis, businesses have been doing difficult jobs and they have been responding well when those things have been asked of them. What we do know is that last time around when we had a generalised vat cut again in 08 09, about four out of five businesses from memory passed that vat cut on to consumers. I was out today getting my lunch and that was certainly the case and i know lots of companies are making a feature of that but obviously it will be a decision for individual companies to make. But i think the important thing is, you know, whether the benefits slightly flows to consumers or to the businesses or some mix of that, all of that is helpful for safeguarding jobs. In terms of the interventions youve made, the £30 billion or so in interventions youve made, are you confident that that, alongside the interventions you made with the Job Retention programme, the support to businesses, on balance that what you are doing is going to be enough to prevent the rapid rise, the projected rapid rise in unemployment including the youth unemployment numbers which are very worrying for all of us . I would agree with you, i am particularly worried about youth unemployment. Young people are 2. 5 times more likely to work in closed sectors, we know that. And we also know from experience and from academic and economic evidence that young people are the ones who are at the greatest risk of scarring if they lose contact with the Labour Market early on in theircareers. That has a very damaging impact on them for years and years to come which is why it is right and appropriate to target interventions on them. Rishi sunak. Youre watching wednesday in parliament with me, david cornock. Dont forget that if you miss our daily round up, you can catch up via the bbc iplayer. It was the last ever session of questions to the department for International Development, following borisjohnsons announcement last month that its to merge with the foreign office. The department was set up in 1997 under the blair government. The Current InternationalDevelopment Secretary was questioned about how and when the decision to abolish her department was taken. Last week, i asked the secretary of state, what partner organisations and nongovernmental organisations were consulted prior to the announcement for the merger between the department for International Development and the foreign commonwealth office. She said the statement of the merger was first made to parliament, and theres been ongoing consultation since then. This stands in stark contradiction to what the Prime Minister said previously when he told this house there had been massive consultation over a long period. Therefore, was the Prime Minister aware hed taken the decision without any evidence to support it, or did he Mislead Parliament to create an illusion of legitimacy to this ideologically driven, disastrous merger . The Prime Minister made the announcement of the new departmental framework to parliament first, and there are ongoing discussions led by the permanent secretary with the ngos. The decision to ask the department was done on a whim by the Prime Minister to try to distract from his handling of the pandemic. Thats why there are still no details of what the department will look like, how it will operate, or how it will be scrutinised to guarantee value for money for uk taxpayers who are rightly proud of the work dfid has done in tackling poverty around the world. So will she guarantee that funds will be focused on the worlds poorest, and any cuts to the aid budget come from funds which currently go to middle and upper income countries, or have been found to have Little Development impact such as those outlined in the one campaign to aid index . The minister insisted the government remain committed to a target of spending 0. 7 of the uks National Income on aid. Dfid is world renowned for its focus and programme expertise, and that will continue to be the case. Poverty reduction will continue to be a critical focus of how we spend the 0. 7 that this government continues to be committed to. We enshrined it in law and it stays there, and the Prime Minister is absolutely committed to that. The ability to help a country become self sufficient and climb up that ladder will absolutely continue. We will continue to commit to the 0. 7 based on gnr. Anne marie trevelyan. The home secretary has said that the number of people arriving illegally in the uk on small boats is unacceptably high. Priti patel told the Home Affairs Committee the situation was shocking and appalling. In a wide ranging session, she was also repeatedly asked about the number of people entering the country with coronavirus. How many people do you estimate are coming into the country at the moment with coronavirus . Well, that i dont know. I mean, on a daily basis, the number of people coming into the country is approximately 50,000 people and thats across all modes of transport. I dont have a figure of people coming into the country on a daily basis with the coronavirus. That figure is held centrally elsewhere in government. If the average prevalence for the people coming into the country was similar to that of spain and spain normally would be about 40 of the cases coming into the country anyway you would then expect that to be sort of over 100 people a day with coronavirus coming into the country. Is that accurate . Well, it sounds to me like theres a bigger hypothetical. So theres no point asking me if a hypothetical figure is accurate. What im really keen to know is, what is the governments estimate . The estimate that we had, and bear in mind that there was a range of data that we had coming in, and it was difficult for the scientific advisers in particular to say that that data was fully reliable the figure i was given, the percentage was 0. 5 of people basically who are potentially bringing in cases from outside of the uk into the uk. Yvette cooper harked back to remarks made by a Senior Home Office official, shona dunn. We went to this figure last time in our last evidence session, and you raised that last time, you said it was 0. 5 of people coming into the country. In that evidence session, shona dunn then corrected you and said in fact, it was 0. 5 of the total number of cases currently in the uk. So can we just clarify which is it . 0. 5 of the number of people coming into the country, or 0. 5 of the number of cases in the uk . Those are very different figures. Sorry, its the cases in the uk. 0k. So 0. 5 of cases in the uk. But given that we dont know how many cases there were in the uk at that time, i ask you again were you ever given, did you ever ask for, and were you ever given an estimate of the number of people coming into the country with coronavirus . Well, as ive already said, it was difficult to get accurate information. Im just asking if you were given estimates. Yvette cooper said that the 0. 5 figure was initally given in march. What is the figure for now today injuly, when weve got different quarantine arrangements in place that presumably are based on some evidence . What is your figure for now of the 50,000, what is the governments estimate about the number of those people who are likely to be carrying coronavirus, and thereby presumably justifying the quarantine arrangements you have in place . Well, i have just told you the figure that i have been given as the only reliable estimate. We will ask for that to come to you in writing from a government scientific adviser. But now, it was time to turn to other pressing issues such as illegal migration. Injanuary 2019, the british and french governments agreed the treaty of sandhurst to improve Border Security to prevent people crossing that channel in small boats. Migration botched reports around 2,300 have successfully crossed into the uk in the first half of 2020. Do you accept those figures . I dont have those in front of me. I see figures on a daily basis because i actually see notjust the data, but every single incident report that comes in. What i would say, and ill be very clear about it, is that these numbers are shocking and appalling, and theyre unacceptably high. She said shed had some difficult discussions with her french counterpart. Currently the french authorities are not intercepting boats at sea. And by that, i mean even boats that are just 250 yards or so away from the french coast. I feel that there could be stronger enforcement measures on the french side, and theyve heard that from me. I believe it was the the schoenberg agreement some while ago which apparently was an informal agreement whereby we could repatriate at sea interceptions back to france, but nothing is ever happened under that agreement, which turns out not to a been worth the gentlemans handshake it was made on. We have stress tested the agreement since last year again and again, and again. And in fact, i think one of my officials described it inappropriately as a gentlemans agreement, which is thoroughly inappropriate. Literally just sort of an informal agreement. And the fact of the matter is these agreements are here to stand the test of time. The home secretary said the uk had offer