During Prime Minister's Questions, Boris Johnson says he plans to end self-isolation rules in England ahead of time
Thanks to "encouraging" Covid trends, he says he wants to end the last domestic restrictions a "full month early"
He has been facing MPs in the Commons for the first time since conducting a mini-reshuffle of his cabinet
Labour MPs press the PM on fraud and rising energy prices
The reshuffle follows weeks of Tory discord over parties at Downing Street and fresh controversy over the PM's Jimmy Savile remarks
Fifteen Tory MPs have publicly told Johnson to go but more are believed to have submitted letters of no confidence
The Daily Mirror has published a new photo that it says shows Johnson at a virtual Christmas quiz with an open bottle of champagne
We're pausing our live coverage of the day's political events.
Your writers were Alexandra Fouché, Chris Giles, Jennifer Meierhans, Joshua Nevett, Paul Seddon and Nathan Williams.
The page was edited by Lauren Turner and Alex Therrien.
From all of us, have a good evening.
Image source, Getty ImagesWe're coming to the end of our live coverage today. Here's a recap of what's been happening.
Image source, PA MediaShadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said the prime minister's announcement on the early lifting of remaining Covid restrictions in England were intended to detract attention from his current political difficulties.
"The fact we had no notice this was coming, no sense it was coming, suggests that some throwaway remarks at the start of Prime Minister's Questions were more about digging the prime minister out of a political hole than dealing with the serious challenge facing the country," he told the BBC.
Streeting also said the government needed a "real plan for living well with Covid", adding Labour had published its own plan "weeks ago" and that the prime minister was "welcome to nick it".
Image source, PA MediaPeople in the "real world" don't care about parties held in Downing Street during lockdown, the new leader of the House of Commons says.
Mark Spencer told BBC Radio Nottingham "what really mattered" to people was their energy bills, NHS backlogs and jobs.
Spencer replaced Jacob Rees-Mogg as Commons leader in a cabinet reshuffle.
He was formerly the government chief whip, in charge of party discipline.
The Sherwood MP said he could not comment further on government lockdown parties because of the police investigation, but said: "Clearly people were having a drink, I've done that. I've had a drink of alcohol during Covid."
He said: "When you get out into the real world and you talk to real people, my experience is they are saying to me 'you know what really matters to me is the cost of my energy bills, the NHS backlog post-Covid, making sure the economy is growing and my job is secure'."
Image source, PA MediaOn the issue of the Downing Street parties, Conservative MP Robbie Moore has given a scathing interview to a local newspaper, external. He said he shared the "rage and anger" felt by his constituents.
Moor said he had spoken with the prime minister following the publication of an interim report into the parties.
The report by senior civil servant Sue Gray "confirmed the fury and disgust I already had about the reported parties and social events, and indeed the culture of rule-breaking in Downing Street", Moore said.
He said he told Johnson the current situation "is not sustainable and that things must change”.
In the interview, Moore did not say whether he had submitted a letter of no confidence in Johnson's leadership.
If 54 of Tory MPs send letters to the 1922 committee - the influential backbench group which runs the party's leadership contests - it will trigger a challenge.
As we reported earlier, Labour's Fabian Hamilton asked Boris Johnson to explain a photo that appears to show the PM and others with a bottle of bubbly and food at a Christmas party during lockdown.
During PMQs, Hamilton asked the PM if it showed an event "like one of the Christmas parties he told us never happened".
Earlier, the PM said encouraging trends could mean the UK's Covid rules end early - so let's have a look at what today's data tells us.
A further 68,214 new coronavirus infections have been recorded in the UK, according to the government's daily figures., external
This is the lowest number of cases since Friday.
It puts the average number of cases over the last seven days at 485,074.
This is down 143,469 or 22.8% on the previous week.
There have also been 276 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test, the data shows.
That makes the weekly average 1,526 which is down 298 on the previous seven days and represents a 16.3% drop.
Jonathan Blake
BBC political correspondent
Police will take no further action over accusations of bullying and intimidation towards MPs by government whips and Downing Street, the BBC has been told.
The Conservative MP William Wragg confirmed that he had been told by the Metropolitan police that there was no evidence of any criminal offence, as first reported by the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Last month he told a committee that Tory whips had threatened those suspected of wanting Boris Johnson out with the removal of government investment in their constituencies.
The backbencher, who has called for the prime minister to resign, met detectives to discuss the allegations.
Downing Street previously said it had not seen any proof of the behaviour he alleged.
Some Tory MPs are keen to see what one described as “significant culture change” in government and noted the removal of the former Chief Whip Mark Spencer from his post in yesterday’s reshuffle.
The Met has been approached for comment.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has arrived in Moscow ahead of talks about the crisis in eastern Ukraine with veteran Russian diplomat Sergei Lavrov.
The UK is involved in diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions on Ukraine’s eastern borders, where more than 100,000 Russian troops have amassed.
Truss tweeted to say she would “make clear that Russia must immediately withdraw its forces and respect Ukraine’s sovereignty or face severe consequences”.
She said an invasion would be “a huge mistake” and “diplomacy is the only way forward”.
Her visit is the first by a UK foreign secretary for more than four years after a period of rocky relations with Russia.
The government has released more details about her agenda here, external.
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Image source, PA MediaElsewhere in politics, the UK's national terror threat level has been reduced but an attack remains likely.
Security and intelligence experts have downgraded the threat from "severe" - where an attack is deemed to be highly likely - to "substantial".
Home Secretary Priti Patel says the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre assessment is based on the latest intelligence available.
The "substantial" threat level still means a terrorist attack on the UK is likely.
The threat level was increased to severe in November following the explosion outside a Liverpool hospital on Remembrance Sunday and the fatal stabbing of Southend West MP Sir David Amess at a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex on 15 October.
Patel told MPs the current nature and scale of the UK terrorist threat is consistent with the level of threat seen prior to the attacks but that people should not be "complacent".
A scientist who advises government says Boris Johnson's plan to lift Covid self-isolation rules a month early "doesn't seem very cautious".
Professor Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said he was "very concerned that the number of cases remains very high".
He told BBC Radio 4's The World at One he thought that as a population we had "just become rather used to these rather stunning statistics" of 300 deaths per day.
He added: "I think we're all really looking forward to being able to get back to some sort of normality and we know Omicron is generally fairly mild in people who have immunity and most adults have immunity now, either because we've been vaccinated or because we've been infected or both.
"So, we're going in the right direction, but this doesn't seem very cautious in terms of the potential health impact."
He added it would be "wholly wrong to say that the pandemic is in any way over".
Image source, Getty ImagesAt the moment, anyone who has Covid symptoms or who tests positive for Covid via a PCR or lateral flow test must immediately self-isolate.
The current regulations expire on 24 March, but the prime minister told MPs today that he expects to lift them a month earlier in England, as long as the current "encouraging trends in data continue".
In England and Northern Ireland you can leave self-isolation after five full days if you have two negative lateral flow results, 24 hours apart.
In Scotland and Wales you must self-isolate for at least seven days - as soon as symptoms appear or you test positive.
Here's our guide to the self-isolation rules across the UK and here's how to look after yourself at home.
Robert Cuffe
BBC head of statistics
The latest figures from the ONS are a wrinkle in the "positive trends" that the prime minister described earlier.
These are our clearest picture of how many people have Covid: they don't depend on who gets tested or changing rules about lateral flow and PCR tests. That's because the ONS estimates infection rates in the community by swabbing people regardless of whether they think they might be infected.
And they suggest that infections are on the rise again. After falling sharply from their New Year peak, they're back up to about 3.3 million again.
Despite record numbers of infections, this January has seen overall death rates that don't look very different to pre-Covid times. And the number of people in hospital is still falling.
So infections on their own might not change the direction of travel.
If you’re just joining us, you’ve missed another tumultuous session of Prime Minister’s Questions, and plenty of headlines besides.
Let’s take stock of what’s happened:
The PM says he wants to end self-isolation rules, given encouraging Covid trends.
Hospital cases are continuing to fall and infections are lower than they once were - but there has been an uptick in rates for the second week running, according to estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS survey suggests that just over 3.3 million people in the UK would test positive for coronavirus in the week ending 5 February. This is up from just under 3.1 million in the previous week.
Infections rates were on the rise in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and falling Wales. The trend was uncertain in England.
Here are the estimated numbers of people with Covid, for the week ending 5 February:
Image source, No 10 Downing StreetBoris Johnson will travel to Poland on Thursday as he steps up diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in eastern Ukraine amid fears of a Russian invasion.
The prime minister will visit British soldiers stationed in the country, and meetings with Poland’s prime minister and president are scheduled.
A meeting with the chief of the Nato alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, is expected to take place in Brussels on the same day.
The trip comes as western countries attempt to defuse tensions on the Ukrainian border, where thousands of Russian troops have amassed.
Russia has denied any plans to invade Ukraine but has asked for security guarantees from Nato, including ruling out Ukraine becoming a member,
Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was flying to Moscow on Wednesday for talks with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov during a two-day trip.
Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent
Ministers had always said the rule on self-isolation could end before the planned date of 24 March.
The trends are positive - hospital cases are continuing to fall and the huge wave of infections caused by Omicron has not pushed overall deaths above what would normally be seen in winter.
But this decision has still taken most by surprise - as infection levels are still high and it's unclear what this will do to the spread of the virus.
It is, though, worth bearing in mind that not every infected person was self-isolating anyway.
This winter, the testing system has only picking up half of all infections - at the peak it was missing around an estimated 200,000 cases a day.
What's more, about one in five of those who test positive do not fully adhere to the self-isolation requirements.
The move is also likely to pave the way for the dismantling of the community testing system, with many experts believing tests will soon only be used in settings such as care homes and hospitals - or to deal with major outbreaks.
England is fast approaching the point where it treats Covid like any other respiratory illness.
Image source, ReutersPrime Minister Boris Johnson is touring the tea room… again, BBC Newsnight's political editor, Nicholas Watt, has tweeted, external.
When a prime minister enters the tea room in the House of Commons after PMQs, it can indicate they're seeking to shore up support among backbench MPs sceptical of their leadership.
A series of political controversies - including the Partygate affair - have given those MPs reason to question Johnson's position in recent weeks.
Some Conservative MPs have called for Johnson to resign, while others have said they're withholding judgement until the Met Police concludes its investigation into lockdown parties in Downing Street.
This week, Johnson has sought to reset his government with a mini-cabinet reshuffle, which followed the departure of several senior advisers.
But ultimately, it's MPs who will decide Johnson's fate. If 54 of them send letters to the 1922 committee - the influential backbench group which runs Tory leadership contests - it will trigger a challenge.
Johnson's visit to the tea room may be an attempt to win over MPs whose fingers are on the trigger.
His presence hasn't gone unnoticed by one MP, who said the prime minister was "currently scrambling around the tea room". "Desperation", tweeted, external Stephen Flynn, SNP MP for Aberdeen South.
Reality Check
Image source, UK ParliamentHealth minister Gillian Keegan has apologised for continuing a meeting after finding out she was Covid positive following a lateral flow test.
According to barrister Adam Wagner, the minister may have breached Covid guidelines but not necessarily the law, external.
Under government guidance - which is not legally enforced with fines and prosecution – anyone who has symptoms or tests positive for Covid in England should self-isolate “straight away”.
You no longer need to take a PCR test to confirm a positive lateral flow test result.
However, the legal requirement to self-isolate in England is only triggered when you are notified by a "relevant person" (usually the NHS).
Read more: What are the Covid self-isolation rules?
Image source, Science Photo LibraryEarlier, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the government plans to lift England's remaining Covid restrictions - which are due to end on 24 March - a month early.
Asked at the daily lobby briefing if this meant people could go to work if they had Covid, the PM's spokesman said the government would not advise anyone who tests positive to go to work once legal restrictions end.
The spokesman said everyone would be expected take steps to reduce the spread of the virus as they would if they had flu.
"What we would simply be doing is removing the domestic regulations which relate to isolation," the spokesman added.
"But obviously, in the same way that someone with flu, we wouldn't recommend they go to work, we would never recommend anyone goes to work when they have an infectious disease."