BBC Politics

We'll pause our coverage of PMQs for this week.

Thanks for following along with us.

Chris Morris
BBC Reality Check

Boris Johnson was challenged in Prime Minister’s Questions about the UK’s Internal Market Bill, and how it could complicate relations with the United States - if Joe Biden were to win the Presidential election.

Mr Biden has never been a fan of Brexit and his view would be closer to the European - and more specifically the Irish view of what it means.

Donald Trump has also listened to Irish concerns about Brexit. But he has always made it clear that he is comfortable with a more radical split between the UK and the rest of Europe.

Biden has already warned that the Internal Market Bill, which allows the government to ignore specific obligations on Northern Ireland contained in the Brexit withdrawal agreement, could have a negative impact on efforts to agree a free trade deal between the UK and the US.

“We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit,” Mr Biden said in a tweet in September, referring to the 1998 agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland.

He made his comments after details of the Internal Market Bill were first published.

“Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent,” Mr Biden said, “upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.”

Boris Johnson of course argues that he is not trying to undermine the Good Friday agreement, simply to maintain the integrity of the United Kingdom.

If there were to be a Biden administration, they might not see things in quite the same way.

Reality Check

At PMQs, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called on the prime minister “to fix test and trace” during England’s four-week lockdown.

Sir Keir criticised NHS Test and Trace data, saying “the majority of people still don’t get results within 24 hours”.

He was correct.

In the week to 21 October, only 11.3% of all pillar 2 test results - testing in the community - were received in the 24 hours after the swab was taken.

But the number of test results received within 24 hours was an improvement on the previous week, where the figure was as low as 6.7%.

The labs processing tests do not, however, operate 24 hours a day and, therefore, a more reliable measure of turnaround times is the number of results received at some point on the day after the test.

On this count, 46.5% of results were received on the day after the test was taken.

Laura Kuenssberg
Political editor

Trying to respond to what's going on in the United States at the moment is for the government equivalent of handling a grenade with the pin pulled.

They don't know what the result is going to be, the US is an enormously important ally, and therefore they want to tread extremely carefully - not condemning anything, not saying that anything's gone wrong and not giving either the Biden camp or the Trump camp, any sniff of a hint that they could leave themselves open to the accusation that they were somehow interfering.

That said, it was very uncomfortable for the foreign secretary this morning, when he was asked straightforwardly, about the president's comment that they should stop counting votes.

Dominic Raab was so careful that he didn't want to offend anybody or try to anticipate the result in any way that he wouldn't even go anywhere near condemning that which is a very important principle in a democracy.

But the reality is this a very, very awkward moment for the government.

There are positives and negatives for this administration whoever the eventual winner of this is.

But a contested, conflicted result makes it very difficult for them to engage.

Reality Check

The prime minister told the House of Commons: “To go from 3,000 tests a day – 2,000 tests a day – to 500,000 is a quite remarkable feat.”

Boris Johnson was talking about the government’s target to reach 500,000 daily testing capacity (the amount of tests labs can process in theory) by the end of October.

The data for 31 October did indeed show that 525,000 tests could have been done on 31 October, which was a doubling of capacity in two months, although fewer than 300,000 tests were actually processed.

Officials say it is natural that all the capacity is not being used up. They say there needs to be flexibility in the system to cope with surges in demand or problems occurring with equipment or staff.

Youcan read more about the testing target here.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

And as the PM leaves the Commons chamber that's it for this week's prime minister's questions.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

The last question is from Labour's Ruth Jones, who says a more effective test and trace system "driven by local authorities" is needed to bring the pandemic under control.

The PM says he will not pretend that "every aspect of NHS Test and Trace has worked in the way I want it to".

But he says the system has achieve some quite remarkable things and co-operation with local government has been strong, including on the rollout of mass testing in Liverpool.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Labour MP Mary Kelly Foy, who represents the City of Durham, says the PM's chief aide Dominic Cummings flouted coronavirus regulations when he travelled to the region during the lockdown and undermined public confidence in the rules.

The PM disagrees, suggesting what is eroding confidence is the opposition's "political point scoring" and says Labour MPs are better served focusing on advising their constituents.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Labour MP Chi Csays her constituent built a private coach business with 18 employees and a £1m turnover.

She says he can't get grants because coaches are not classed as either tourism or leisure and that banks won't accept his assets for loan guarantees.

Boris Johnson replies that the company should be eligible for bounce back loans.

When Ms Onwurah shakes her head, he asks her to send him the details of her constituent.

Vicki Young
Deputy Political Editor

Ministers have been under a lot of pressure from SNP to guarantee that furlough scheme will be available in future if Scotland decides another lockdown is necessary there.

The chancellor will be making statement to MPs tomorrow and will have to clarify this.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

The next question is from the SNP MP Carol Monaghan.

She makes the same point as her colleague Ian Blackford, calling for a cast-iron guarantee that Scottish firms will have access to the furlough scheme at 80% of wages.

The PM repeats his earlier comment that furlough is a UK scheme and "of course it will be available to the people of Scotland".

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke says it is not long before the UK comes out of the EU transition period.

She seeks confirmation that the government will ensure that Dover is kept free from traffic gridlock.

Boris Johnson replies that Highways England is developing plans to improve access into Dover.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Conservative MP and former Chancellor Sajid Javid says a report shows that the writing ability of year 7 pupils are 22 months behind expectations.

He says "it is the life chances of the most disadvantage that are hit hardest when schools close" and asks the PM how he will help those children.

Boris Johnson says one on one tutoring is one "innovative idea" that has come out of the pandemic.

He says he wants to continue providing such support when the pandemic ends.

Image source, HoC

Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani says that following the attack in Vienna the must "redouble our support for anti-extremism programmes".

She asks the PM if he shares her concerns about a UK-based TV channel Islam TV which she says has been fined by Ofcom for giving air time to preachers who justify anti-Semitism and wife beating?

Boris Johnson agrees and says the UK stands shoulder to should with France and Austria "in our joint war against this abominable ideology"

"And together we will defeat it."

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Now it is the turn of the SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford who starts by inviting the PM to "condemn" Donald Trump's comments earlier suggesting his opponents were trying to defraud him of election victory.

Moving onto Covid, he asks for a firm commitment that the government will extend the 80% support for wage subsidies through the furlough scheme to Scotland if it goes into lockdown.

He says ministers are "rolling back" on the promise seemingly made by the Chancellor and PM last week.

But the PM says he will not "budge" from the commitment. The furlough is a UK-wide scheme and has saved thousands of jobs, he says, adding that Chancellor Rishi Sunak will make a statement on general economic support on Thursday.

Vicki Young
Deputy Political Editor

Labour leader and lots of Conservative MPs want to pin the PM down on how the government will assess whether lockdown in England has worked – will it be R rate, case numbers, hospitalisations, deaths? Johnson reiterates that the measures will definitely be lifted on 2nd December. Big questions will replace them.