Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Paris

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The French prime minister has announced a further easing of Covid restrictions.

Speaking after the weekly cabinet meeting, Jean Castex said the situation in France had improved much more quickly than expected and the French were witnessing "a return to normal life".

As a result, two restrictions will be lifted in the coming days.

First, from tomorrow, it’ll no longer be compulsory to wear face coverings outdoors (though in some circumstances such as in queues they will still be required).

Then, on Sunday, the nationwide night-time curfew – which currently starts at 23:00 local time – will be lifted entirely. It’ll be the first time since the end of October that the French can leave their homes at night without having to justify themselves.

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Mass vaccination of 12 to 17-year-old children against Covid-19 is unlikely to be recommended soon, the BBC understands - but certain groups of children may be offered a vaccine.

Official advice from the UK's vaccine committee, the JCVI, to the government is expected on Wednesday.

There has been much speculation over whether children were going to be included in the UK's mass vaccination programme after regulator the MHRA approved Pfizer's use in 12 to 15-year-olds recently.

Current advice is that 16 to 18-year-olds can be offered a Pfizer jab if they are in a priority group, or live with someone who has a weakened immune system.

Children's risk of severe disease from Covid is tiny and deaths are extremely rare. As such, the direct benefits to them of vaccination would be low.

It means some have questioned whether it's morally right to vaccinate children in the UK, particularly when millions of other people around the world remain unvaccinated.

On the other hand, vaccinating children could reduce infections across society, help protect adults and the vulnerable, and keep schools open.

"This is a very finely balanced issue and a difficult decision," says Prof Calum Semple, professor of outbreak medicine and child health from the University of Liverpool.

The UK's stock of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is currently being prioritised for adults aged 18 to 40 - who are not being offered AstraZeneca - as the government pushes to see all adults in the UK given at least one dose by the end of July.

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One of the key developers of the AstraZeneca vaccine says it might not be possible to keep tweaking vaccines to provide protection against all possible future variants of the coronavirus.

Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, says vaccines could be modified to cope with existing variants – but there is no way of telling what might emerge in future.

He tells the Commons Science and Technology Committee: “The problem is that if we tweaked one, for example now for the Delta variant, we may well have the Omega variant or the Epsilon variant, or the Kappa variant, and you would have to then potentially be tweaking the vaccines very regularly.

"And I just don't think that is going to be achievable during this period where there's so much transmission going on around the world and new variants are going to be thrown up.”

Prof Pollard says it might be possible to stay on top of changes to the virus if we get to a more stable situation, where one dominant version of the virus emerges each year. In that case – like flu – an annual update to vaccines might be sufficient.

He stresses that the current vaccines provid very high levels of protection against hospitalisation for all existing variants.

If you missed PMQs earlier, MP Layla Moran said the government's "bungling" of the pandemic and problems caused by Brexit are causing staff shortages in the hospitality sector.

The Lib Dem MP called for a Covid recovery visa to help recruit staff to overcome short-term problems as businesses start to re-open.

You can watch a clip from Moran's question here

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Monday's announcement that the ending of all coronavirus restrictions in England would be pushed back by a month has prompted a number of questions from our readers.

For example, Wendy Such asks: "Will school proms be able to go ahead?", and Cherie Meads wonders how many people she can now have at her wedding on 27 July.

We've been sifting through them, and you can find the answers to many questions on the rules for weddings, birthday parties and more here.

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For some football fans, a Covid jab could offer an opportunity to get inside a premiership ground for the first time in many, many months.

• In north-east London, over 18s are invited to get their first dose on 19 June at West Ham's London Stadium, external for pre-booked appointments between 10:00 and 18:00 BST
• In south-west London, Chelsea's ground will offer Pfizer vaccines, external to anyone eligible on 19 June between 10:00 and 19:30 BST
• At Charlton's ground in south-east London, external, AstraZeneca vaccines will be on offer on 19 June to walk-ins between 08:00 and 20:00 BST. The club said the first 1,000 people to get vaccinated there would get a free ticket to a game
• At Spurs' stadium in Tottenham, external, in north London, anyone aged 21 and over will be able to get a vaccine on 20 June between 10:00 and 18:00 BST. They are open for walk in and pre-booked appointments

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Back to the G7 vaccine promise that we reported on earlier, and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer's response. He believes the pledge to give one billion Covid vaccine doses to poor countries falls short of "what the world needed".

Responding to the prime minister's statement, he said the number is less than one tenth of what the World Health Organization suggested.

"The priority for the summit had to be a clear plan to vaccinate the world. This is not just a moral imperative, it's in our self-interest as the Delta variant makes clear," he says, referring to the variant first identified in India.

"Without global vaccine coverage, this virus continues to boomerang, bringing more variants and more disruption to these shores. "

He adds: "The headlines of a billion doses may be what the prime minister wanted, but it's not what the world needed."

The prime minister calls the pledge "fantastic" and accuses Sir Keir of "constantly running this country's efforts down".

More than 2.3 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines have been administered, in over 190 countries worldwide - but there are vast differences in the pace of progress.

Head here for more information.

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Moscow is making Covid-19 vaccines compulsory for large parts of the city’s population, as Russia battles soaring cases and low vaccine uptake. It'll be one of the first places in the world to make Covid-19 vaccination compulsory.

Health officials say employers in most industries, including retail, catering, education, utilities and energy sectors, will be obliged to fully vaccinate at least 60% of their staff by 15 August.

The announcement seems to be an admission that despite all the fanfare with the rollout of Russia's own Sputnik vaccine, uptake has been poor. Fewer than two million Moscow residents - just 14% of the population - have had the jab.

Moscow's mayor Sergei Sobyanin says Covid-19 cases are rising dramatically and action is needed to prevent thousands of deaths.

"We simply must do everything to carry out mass vaccinations in the shortest possible time and stop this terrible disease, stop the deaths of thousands of people," he wrote on his blog.

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People will need to use their judgement when it comes to decisions like wearing face coverings once restrictions are eased in England on 19 July, Public Health England's Covid-19 strategic response director has said.

Dr Susan Hopkins says it will be up to individuals to decide whether they wear face coverings in shops, but they could be mandatory in more tightly confined spaces.

"I think there will be a certain amount of social responsibility that people will take, particularly for those that are elderly or immunocompromised or at higher risk of infection," she tells MPs on the Science and Technology Committee.

"I think we will all need to make decisions for ourselves, particularly on wearing masks, using better ventilation, hand hygiene."

She adds: "So we may find that some people, not all, will change their behaviours, and particularly those that are more concerned about their health or the health of people they live with. It will be for governments to decide what rules and regulations will need to be in place and what legislation will need to continue after 19 July."

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Goldman Sachs is delaying its plans to bring all UK staff back into the office after the government extended coronavirus restrictions.

The bank had told staff to be ready to return to the workplace in June, but confirmed the change in a note to workers late on Tuesday.

Goldman Sachs International chief executive, Richard Gnodde, told staff its office London remained "open and available" in line with government guidelines. But a spokesman confirmed the bank now plans to get all staff back in the office after July 19.

Meanwhile, NatWest says its plans for "priority workers" to return on 21 June are also under review.

Read more about how banks are planning how to return to offices here.

Here's what you need to know if you're just catching up over lunch:

• The prime minister's former aide Dominic Cummings has published expletive-laden messages apparently from Boris Johnson, including one that brands the health secretary "hopeless", in the latest salvo in a bitter war of words over the handling of the pandemic.
• Covid vaccinations are to become compulsory for staff in care homes for older people in England, the BBC has been told.
• MPs are to vote later on extending emergency Covid laws in England for another four weeks, amid concern over rising cases.
• Researchers say they have found another life-saving therapy that could help one in three of those in hospital with severe Covid.
• A deaf campaigner is taking legal action against the government, after complaining that it failed to provide in-person British Sign Language interpreters at No 10 Covid briefings.

Away from the Commons, students in the Republic of Ireland are set to return to face-to-face learning in September, the country's higher education minister says.

While there may still be some online learning aspects, the government is planning for a full return to third-level education.

"It will overwhelmingly be on site from the new academic year," Simon Harris says.

You can read more about the situation for university students in the Republic of Ireland here.

Boris Johnson says the G7 countries share a determination to "look beyond today's crisis and build back better, fairer and greener".

He tells MPs: "If we can learn anything from this tragedy we have at least been given a chance to break with the past and do things better and do them differently."

He adds that, as the UK economy rebounds, we must avoid the mistakes we made after the financial crash of 2008 and make sure everyone benefits from the recovery.

Boris Johnson tells the House of Commons that the "world's most popular vaccine", the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab, was developed in the UK and the agreement was to make it easy to store, quick to distribute for zero profit to protect as many people as possible".

Over 500 million AstraZeneca jabs have been given to 168 countries, accounting for 96% of the doses distributed to developing countries by global vaccine sharing scheme Covax, he says.

"But all the efforts of this country and of many others, no matter how generous and far-sighted, would be futile in the face of another lethal virus that might escape our efforts," he says.

The G7 has agreed to support a global pandemic radar to spot new viruses before they begin to spread and develop the ability to make vaccines, treatments and tests in 100 days compared to the 300 days required for Covid.

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Prime Minister's Questions are over and Boris Johnson is now making a statement on the G7 and Nato summits.

"The G7 will combine our strengths and expertise to defeat Covid, minimise the risk of another pandemic and build back better, fairer and greener for the benefit of all," he says.

"Alongside our partners, the G7 is now engaged in the biggest and fastest vaccination programme in history designed to proect the whole world by the end of next year."

He says the G7 has pledged to supply developing countries with another billion doses of vaccine and 100 million will come from the UK.

Finally, Conservative MP Philip Davies says the overall deaths in the UK over the last 13 weeks are 8,873 below the five-year average, which includes the time the Delta variant has been around.

He asks why the PM trusts the views of Prof Susan Mickey at Sage on delaying the so-called "freedom day" instead of trusting the vaccine programme, the common sense of the British People and his Conservative instincts of individual freedom and responsibilty.

Prof Mickey last week said she wanted to see some Covid restrictions last forever, Davies says.

Boris Johnson responds that nobody, least of all him, wants to see coronavirus restrictions last forever, nor does he believe they will.

But the vaccination programme needs a little more time to save thousands more lives, the PM adds.

A bit more from PMQs now.

Lib Dem MP Layla Moran asks what can be done about chronic staff shortages in the hospitality industry in the UK - blaming the government's "bungled handling" of the pandemic and Brexit.

The PM says the government will retain "an open and flexible approach" to allowing talent in from overseas - but stresses the large volume of vacancies offers an opportunity to many young people who are currently furloughed or looking for a job.

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While PMQs is taking place, Dominic Cummings - the PM's former chief adviser - has published messages apparently from Boris Johnson, in which Johnson describes the health secretary as "hopeless".

It is the latest salvo in a bitter war of words between Cummings and Matt Hancock over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Cummings accuses Hancock of trying to rewrite history at a select committee appearance last week.

He repeats claims - denied by Hancock - that he lied to the PM.

The WhatsApp messages, which appear to show an exchange between Johnson and Cummings on 27 March last year, have been put on Cummings' blog.

Sir Keir Starmer says business rate relief is being withdrawn from end of this month - affecting 750,000 buisnesses - and furlough is also being phased out.

In Wales, business rate relief is being extended for a year.

"When is the PM going to do the same for businesses in England?" he asks.

Boris Johnson says support from furlough and business rates as well as grants of up to £18,000 and support from councils will continue.

"We are also seeing businesses slowly recovering," he says.

Growth in the econmy in April was 2.3% and card spending was 20% above pre-pandemic levels, he says.

Sir Keir Starmer asks the PM to drop the traffic light system, get rid of the amber list, secure the borders and do everything possible to save the British summer.

Boris Johnson says: "We have the toughest border measures anywhere in the world with 50 countries on the red list."

He says if Starmer wants to close this country down to travellers then it's also totally pointless as 75% of our medicines and 50% of our food comes from abroad.

Starmer asks if the PM is serious suggesting the 20,000 people who came to the UK from India while it was not on the red list were carrying vital medicine and food.