2 2GM Tuesday July 21 2020 | the times
News
COMMENT 27
LEADING ARTICLES 31
WORLD 32MARKETS 46-
REGISTER 53
WEATHER 56Global
confirmed casesUK confirmed
casesPlease note, some sections of The Times are available only in the United Kingdom and Ireland
© TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED, 2020. Published in print and all other derivative formats by Times Newspapers Ltd, 1 London Bridge St, London,
SE1 9GF, telephone 020 7782 5000. Printed by: Newsprinters (Broxbourne) Ltd, Great Cambridge Rd, Waltham Cross, EN8 8DY; Newsprinters
(Knowsley) Ltd, Kitling Rd, Prescot, Merseyside, L34 9HN; Newsprinters (Eurocentral) Ltd, Byramsmuir Road, Holytown, Motherwell, ML1 1NP;
Johnston Press, Carn Web, Morton 3 Esky Drive, Carn Industial Estate, Portadown, BT63 5YY; Smurfit Kappa News Press Ltd, Kells Industrial
Estate, Virginia Rd, Kells, County Meath, Ireland; KP Services, La Rue Martel, La Rue des Pres Trading Estate, St Saviour, Jersey, JE2 7QR; Bermont
SA, Avda de Alemania 12, 28821 Coslada, Spain; Newsprint Impresion Digital SL, Poligono Industrial Los Majuelos, 38108 San Cristobal de la
Laguna, Sta Cruz de Tenerife, Spain; Omniprint SA, Poligono Son Llaut, 07320 Santa Maria del Cami (Mallorca), Spain; MOP, 62 Boulevard de
l’Europe, 13127 Vitrolles, France; Europrinter SA, Avenue Jean Mermoz 10, 6041 Charleroi, Belgium; Miller Newsprint Ltd, Miller House, Tarxien Rd,
Malta Airport, LQA 05 Luqa, Malta; Milkro Digital Cyprus Ltd, Nissou Industrial Estate, Old Nicosia-Limassol Rd, 2571 Nisou, Cyprus; Milkro Hellas
Publisher Services Ltd, 2nd Kilometer Peanias-Markopoulo Ave, Position Nisiza, 19441 Koropi, Greece; Atlas Media Communication FZ LLC, PO Box
14833, International Media Production Zone, Dubai. For permission to copy articles or headlines for internal information purposes contact
Newspaper Licensing Agency at PO Box 101, Tunbridge Wells, TN1 1WX, tel 01892 525274, e-mail [email protected]. For all other reproduction and
licensing inquiries contact Licensing Department, 1 London Bridge St, London, SE1 9GF, telephone 020 7711 7888, e-mail [email protected]
CORONAVIRUS SUMMARY
SPORT 57
CROSSWORD 68
TV & RADIO TIMESNurses’ chief excluded
Ruth May, the chief nursing officer
for England, has confirmed that
she was dropped from a Downing
Street press conference after she
said that she would criticise Boris
Johnson’s chief aide for driving to
Durham during the lockdown. She
said that she was never told why
she had been excluded at the last
minute on June 1. Speaking to
MPs yesterday she confirmed that
when asked during a preparation
session about Dominic Cummings
she said that he should have kept
to the rules. “In my opinion the
rules were clear,” she said. Page 11Hope for British drug
A drug developed at the
University of Southampton by the
pharmaceutical company
Synairgen reduces the chances of
coronavirus patients needing
intensive care, according to early
results of a trial involving 101
people, half of whom received a
placebo. Hospitalised patients who
inhaled a protein designed to
stimulate the immune system were
79 per cent less likely to
deteriorate to the point where
they required ventilation.
Researchers said that larger trials
were necessary. Page 1114,348,858 603,295,372 45,EU split over recovery
European Union leaders were
spending their fourth successive
night locked in brinkmanship over
a €750 billion Covid-19 recovery
fund. Angela Merkel, the German
chancellor, said the atmosphere
was “incredibly tough”. There were
divisions over the size and
workings of the fund, which will be
underpinned by an unprecedented
debt in the EU budget. President
Macron threatened to walk out
unless the Dutch and Austrian
leaders were ready to accept
Franco-German proposals. Page 14M&S to cut 950 jobs
Marks & Spencer is planning to
cut 950 roles as it accelerates an
overhaul of the business bolstered
by the belief that shopping habits
“have been changed for ever” by
the pandemic. It said that jobs
would be lost at its head office and
property and store management
divisions. The retailer employs
78,000 people, of whom 27,
have been furloughed under the
government’s job retention
scheme. Page 37Masks ‘good for all’
Masks do help to protect the
wearer as well as people they meet,
according to a report from the
University of California, San
Francisco. It says that masks can
reduce the amount of virus that
enters someone’s system, meaning
that they do not get as sick. In
England face coverings are
mandatory on public transport
and will become so in shops from
Friday. Nineteen per cent of
Britons oppose the compulsory
wearing of masks in shops, a
survey indicated last week. Page 12RBS staff stay at home
The taxpayer-owned Royal Bank
of Scotland, one of Britain’s biggest
employers, has told more than
50,000 staff to work from home
until next year in a decision that
deals a blow to the government’s
efforts to boost the economy. The
bank said previously that workers
would be at home until at least the
end of September. Boris Johnson
has pledged that employers would
have “more discretion” about
where staff should work. Page 37Global deathsUK deathsCOMMENT
Education, rather than compulsory inoculation,
is the way to ensure take-up of a Covid vaccine
MELANIE PHILLIPS, PAGE 28Lampard’s rugby advice
Frank Lampard has advised
Harlequins on how to return to
action when Premiership rugby
restarts on August 14. The Chelsea
head coach, who visited the club
last year as part of his Uefa
coaching licence, is understood to
have told Paul Gustard, Harlequins’
head of rugby, that acclimatisation
will be key to playing in an empty
stadium, as will the influence of
ultra-competitive players such as
Chris Robshaw. Page 58Governors avoid Trump
Republican governors frustrated
by President Trump’s handling of
coronavirus are circumventing the
White House and trying to deal
directly with Mike Pence instead.
David Carney, an adviser to Greg
Abbott, the Republican governor
of Texas, told The New York Times
that Mr Trump had “got bored
with” the pandemic and that Mr
Abbott had been speaking to the
vice-president two or three times a
week. Page 15Grenfell contractor ‘pocketed savings’
Greg HurstThe contractor that led work to refur-
bish Grenfell Tower misrepresented
savings arising from changes to its pro-
posed cladding system and kept some of
the money, the inquiry into the fire was
told.
Rydon was asked to look at cheaper
materials for the cladding of the tower
in west London that was later blamed
for the rapid spread of the fire in 2017 in
which 72 residents died.
In these discussions, known as “value
engineering”, Rydon met Kensington
and Chelsea council’s tenant manage-
ment organisation, which owned the
tower, and its consultants Artelia.
In 2014, shortly before its appoint-ment as lead contractor was confirmed,
Rydon asked Harley Facades, a sub-
contractor that was to install the clad-
ding, for cheaper options.
Harley gave options that could save
£419,627 with one type of cladding and
£576,973 with another type, emails
shown to the inquiry revealed.
However, when Rydon presented the
choices to the tenant management or-
ganisation it said the alternative clad-
ding would save £293,368 and £376,
respectively. The lower of the two was
chosen.
Simon Lawrence, who was Rydon’s
contracts manager for the project until
October 2015, was asked by the inquiry
lawyer Richard Millett, QC, how he
accounted for the difference. Mr Law-Graduates will receive qualifications
that more realistically reflect their aca-
demic ability after universities agreed
to end grade inflation.
The pledge should do away with
practices such as ignoring students’
worst grades, not counting marks from
core or compulsory modules and dou-
ble-counting marks close to grade
boundaries.
These steps, which are likely to result
in fewer first class and upper-second
degrees being awarded, were among
principles agreed by bodies represent-
ing universities and the body that mon-
itors their standards, the Quality
Assurance Agency.
The QAA’s research into degree-
awarding practices found widespread
variations among universities, with a
third practising “discounting” under
which not all marks were used to calcu-
late a student’s degree classification. Al-
most the same proportion used multi-
ple algorithms whose effect could be in-Universities agree steps to cut
number of first-class degrees
Greg Hurst Social Affairs Editor flationary. They agreed that
discounting should be minimised and
rounding up of marks should be limited
to within two marks of a grade bounda-
ry and occur only once, not at marking
and degree classification.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher
Education Policy Institute, who has
warned that grade inflation was confus-
ing employers who recruit graduates,
said: “This is... very welcome and some
might argue it is slightly overdue. These
steps, taken together, should call a halt
to grade inflation.”
Universities have been under pres-
sure from the government and the sec-
tor’s regulator, the Office for Students,
to halt dramatic rises in the proportion
of firsts and upper-second class degrees
awarded in the past decade.
Latest figures show that 28 per cent of
students graduated with a first in 2018-
19 with 48 per cent awarded an upper
second, 19 per cent lower second and
only 4 per cent received third-class hon-
ours. These were the same as the previ-
ous year, bringing a halt to year-on-yearrises in the award of top grades since- Research by the Office for Stu-
dents showed big rises in first-class deg-
rees: at Imperial College London they
rose from 31 per cent to 46 per cent, at
University College London from 24 per
cent to 40 per cent and at Durham Uni-
versity from 18 per cent to 38 per cent.
In a speech this month Michelle
Donelan, the universities minister, ac-
cused universities of taking advantage
of students. She said too many universi-
ties “have felt pressured to dumb down”
with their admissions or standards. She
said grade inflation “has to stop”.
Andrew Wathey, vice-chancellor of
Northumbria University, who led the
work, said: “Universities are committed
to taking visible action to address the
issue of grade inflation.”
Some universities introduced tempo-
rary measures this year to give students
greater scope to ask for certain assign-
ments or exams to carry less weight to-
wards their final degree after campuses
closed. This is likely to mean a rise in
the amount of top grades this summer.
arrangements were part of a series
of announcements that included an
NHS effort to sign up 500,000 British
volunteers for future vaccine trials.
The government also secured the
option to buy a million doses of an anti-
body treatment from the British drug-
maker AstraZeneca. It could be used to
protect people with compromised
immune systems, for whom a standard
vaccine is not suitable.
In the Oxford vaccine trial the most
serious side-effects were fevers and
headaches, which could be managed
with paracetamol. The study suggested
that some people would require two
vaccine doses.
Pascal Soriot, the chief executive of
AstraZeneca, which is partnering
Oxford, said: “Our hope is that we can
actually start delivering a vaccine
before the end of the year. We’re work-
ing as quickly as we can but of course
there are things you cannot control.”
A further 10,000 trial subjects have
been recruited in Britain, along with
about 5,000 in Brazil and 2,000 in
South Africa. A trial in the United
States that should start soon will
involve as many as 30,000 more. They
will all depend on high levels of virus
circulating among the public to show
whether the jab stops people falling ill.
Professor Hill said that if a result
came through in early November it
could be possible to gain emergency
use authorisation in a month. “AndNHS staff will be backdated to April,
whereas the rise for police and teachers
starts in September because these pro-
fessions run on different pay schedules.
According to the Office for National
Statistics, public sector pay rose signifi-
cantly during the crisis while pay in the
private sector fell. It said that annual
growth in regular weekly pay was 4.
per cent in the public sector in May,
compared with minus 2.6 per cent in
the private sector.
The official data excludes bonuses,
which are more common in the private
sector, but many companies are choos-
ing to suspend additional payments
during the crisis.
The National Institute Of Economic
and Social Research, a think tank, has
forecast that total pay, including bonus-
es, will be minus 2.9 per cent by Septem-
ber. The relevant figure for the public
sector is 4.9 per cent. Garry Young, its
deputy director, said: “Pay growth in
the private sector has fallen but may
flatten off before weakening further in
the second half of the year when unem-
ployment is set to rise sharply.”
Boris Johnson has said he does not
have a “magic wand” to save jobs and
has appealed to people to return to
work if their offices are “Covid secure”.
The Office for Budget Responsibility,
the independent forecaster, has warned
that four million people, half from the
private sector, could be unemployed by
next year.rence replied: “I would suggest by that
Rydon took some of the savings for
themselves.”
When asked if he knew this at the
time, he added: “I think I probably did,
yes.”
Earlier in the hearing Mr Lawrence
told the inquiry that he came to the
conclusion that the refurbishment of
the tower did not need a fire consultant
to advise on the designs.
Rydon considered recruiting a fire
specialist to provide advice but event-
ually decided that it was not necessary.
Mr Lawrence could not remember
when this decision was made but said
that not hiring specialist fire safety con-
sultants was standard practice for Ry-
don projects.then you would be deploying in
December — so it’s possible, but we
certainly can’t make any guarantee. It
depends on the incidence of disease.”
He suggested that the jab was likely
to cost less than £2.50, based on an
order for about 350 million doses by the
US, which will cost about $1 billion.
The Oxford vaccine, called
ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, is made from a ge-
netically engineered virus that causes a
cold in chimpanzees. A piece of genetic
code from the coronavirus has been in-
serted. This produces a protein found
on the surface of the coronavirus. This
prompts the immune system to mount
a defence that, theoretically, should
work against the real pathogen.
AstraZeneca has agreed to supply
100 million doses to Britain in Septem-
ber or October. It has secured global
manufacturing capacity for two billion
doses and has said that it will not profit
from the jab during the pandemic.
In the study, levels of T-cells, which
can destroy infected cells, peaked 14
days after vaccination and levels of anti-
bodies, which stick to virus particles
and knock them out of action, peaked
after 28 days. It is not known how long
they will last. The trial involved healthy
adults between the ages of 18 and 55.
Jonathan Ball, a professor of molecu-
lar virology at Nottingham University,
said: “There is still a long way to go... It
is unclear whether the levels of
immunity can protect against infection
— that’s what the larger phase-three
trials are designed to test.”
Reports and analysis, pages 10-continued from page 1
Vaccine ‘milestone’continued from page 1
More for public sector workers