The standoff between the Government and Greater Manchester’s leaders continued this morning with the Housing Secretary saying that the Government should have imposed Tier 3 restrictions on Greater Manchester “a few days ago” but were unable to because of the stand-off with  local leaders

Robert Jenrick insisted the situation in the area was “serious and deteriorating”, although conceded there was “evidence of [coronavirus] plateauing in the centre of Manchester”.

The mayor of Greater Manchester was never willing to draw this to a conclusion. The public health situation was deteriorating,…..It would have frankly been irresponsible of the Government to allow this to continue for many more days without bringing it to a conclusion.

Talks took 11 days because the mayor Andy Burnham had been “adamant he had to have a better deal than his neighbours” he said on the Radio Four Today programme

“We probably in honesty should have acted a few days ago but we hadn’t been able to reach an agreement with the mayor of Greater Manchester,”

South Yorkshire region will join Greater Manchester and move into Britain’s highest tier of coronavirus restrictions, the mayor of Sheffield Dan Jarvis has announced

The new rules will come into force from 00.01am on Saturday and they will cover Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield

The region is getting £41m to help fund the measures, including £30m for businesses, and £11m for public health measures like localised test and trace.

 

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