While Boris Johnson has announced the end of domestic Covid regulations in England by the end of this month, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show cases have still been rising over the last fortnight.

The ONS now publishes headline results from its Covid infection survey on Wednesday, ahead of the publication of the full results on Friday. Here are the latest figures.

England

• Around one person in 19 infected in the week ending 5 February, equivalent to 2,824,700 people. The previous week it was one person in 20.

• The ONS says the Covid rate has “increased” in the the last fortnight, but that the trend is “uncertain” in the last week.

Wales

• Around one person in 25 infected in the week ending 5 February, equivalent to 121,200 people. The previous week it was one person in 20.

• The ONS says the Covid rate has “decreased”.

Northern Ireland

• Around one person in 13 infected in the week ending 5 February, equivalent to 145,600 people. The previous week it was one person in 15.

• The ONS says the Covid rate has “continued to increase”.

Scotland

• Around one person in 25 infected in the week ending 5 February, equivalent to 211,300 people. The previous week it was one person in 30.

• The ONS says the Covid rate has “increased”.

And here are two more lines from the post-PMQs No 10 briefing.

• Downing Street defended the decision to appoint Mark Spencer as Commons leader while he is still being investigated over the “Muslimness” claims. (See 10.47am.) The PM’s press secretary said:

The prime minister has been very clear that there is no place within our society for anti-Muslim hatred, racism or discrimination of any kind. He asked for an investigation to establish the facts of what happened in this particular case.

• The PM’s spokesperson said Boris Johnson had “full confidence” in his new communications director, Guto Harri. Harri’s first day at work on Monday was overshadowed by the publication of an interview in which he said Johnson was “not a complete clown”. According to a report by Jason Groves in the Daily Mail, Johnson was furious. Groves reports:

A Whitehall source said the prime minister had read the riot act to Mr Harri, and ordered him not to conduct further interviews. ‘This is not bloody rocket science,’ the source said. ‘What he did yesterday was not helpful in the slightest.

‘The PM gave it to him with both barrels on Monday afternoon, and Guto has now said he will not be talking on the record again. It’s fair to say the PM was not the only person he got it in the neck from.’

At the post-PMQs briefing Boris Johnson’s press secretary confirmed that Christmas quiz featured in the new picture published by the Daily Mirror today was one of the events considered by the Sue Gray investigation. But the press secretary was unable to say whether this was a picture seen by Gray in the course of her inquiry.

Gray shared her evidence with the police and she said that, on the basis of what they had seen, the police had decided this event, and three others, were “not considered to have reached the threshold for criminal investigation”.

The press secretary said that the event was a “virtual quiz” and she confirmed that No 10 would “publish in full” whatever report was provided by Sue Gray at the conclusion of the Met police investigation.

At the post-PMQs briefing No 10 gave a few more details of Boris Johnson’s plan to end Covid restrictions in England from the end of the month. Boris Johnson is due to publish a living with Covid strategy on Monday week. Here are the key points from the briefing.

• Current isolation rules for people in England will be replace by guidance, the PM’s spokesperson said.

• People will continue to be advised to stay away from work if they have Covid, the spokesperson said. He said:

What we would simply be doing is removing the domestic regulations which relate to isolation. 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.

• The spokesperson said this would be an “important step for this country” on the route towards learning to live with Covid. He said:

We’ve talked about how we will need to manage living with coronavirus as we emerge from this pandemic. We are entering into that phase of endemicity as I’ve talked about, and it’s only right that we adjust according.

• The spokesperson said the strategy would cover the future of the Coronavirus Act 2020, which is due for review by 25 March 2022.

• The spokesperson said travel rules would be included in the review, but he would not say whether or not existing rules would stay in place. “We will obviously make a decision when we get to that stage,” he said.

And here is our story about the announcement.

Related: Boris Johnson plans to lift England’s last Covid rules a month early

Here is the PA Media story about the Johnson/Starmer exchanges.

Boris Johnson and “loan shark” Rishi Sunak have been accused by Labour of operating a “big scam” via their energy bill support package.

Labour leader Keir Starmer used PMQs to raise concerns over the government’s policy to give all 28 million households in Britain a £200 up-front rebate on their energy bills from October.

This will be recouped by hiking bills by £40 per year over five years from 2023.

Chancellor Sunak has also promised a £150 council tax rebate for homes in bands A to D.

Starmer told Johnson to “stand up to this chancellor” by telling him to support families “rather than loading them with debt” and take a look at the “bumper profits” of oil and gas giants.

But Johnson said the Labour plan, which includes a windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas producers, would “clobber” supplies but joked it was an “improvement” on nationalising the companies.

The prime minister added: “What he would be doing is hitting the energy companies at precisely the time when we need to encourage them go for more gas because we need to transition now to cleaner fuels. What this government is providing is £9.1bn worth of support, it’s more generous than anything Labour is offering.”

But Starmer accused Johnson of “bluff and bluster”, adding in the Commons: “The reality is this – on top of the Tory tax rises, on top of the soaring prices, the loan shark chancellor and his unwitting sidekick have now kicked up a buy-now, pay-later scheme. It leaves taxpayers in debt while oil and gas companies say they’ve got more money than they know what to do with.

“It’s the same old story with this government: get in a mess, protect their mates and ask working people to pick up the bill.

“But isn’t he worried that everyone can now see that with this prime minister and this chancellor it’s all one big scam and people across the country are paying the price?”

Johnson replied: “What they can see is a Government that is absolutely committed to doing the right thing for the people of this country and taking the tough decisions when Labour is calling for us to take the easy way out and spend more taxpayers’ money.”

This was a PMQs where most of the real news happened outside the Johnson/Starmer exchanges. Given how poisonous it got when those two clashed on Monday last week, and Johnson unleashed a false and malicous smear, a slightly calmer PMQs at a lower temperature was probably something of a blessing.

Boris Johnson was home and dry from the moment he announced that the last Covid restrictions, including isolation rules, would end in England a month early. This is by far the biggest takeaway from PMQs, and Johnson must be hoping that the return to pre-Covid normality may herald a revival in the polls. That may be naive, given the perhaps permanent damage done to his reputation, and the cost-of-living crisis juggernaut heading for No 10, but it may dial down the risk of more letters going in to the chair of the 1922 Committee by a notch or two.

And the latest Daily Mirror photo revelation certainly livened up proceedings. But given that the Met, who have had access to 300 photographs, told Sue Gray that this was not an event they wanted to investigate with a view to issuing fines, it may be a scoop that does not cause lasting damage.

Keir Starmer asked two questions about Kwasi Kwarteng’s fraud gaffe, and then he focused the rest of his time on what the Treasury calls its energy bills rebate package. He was effective on both topics – funnier on fraud, but more damaging to the government on energy bills.

On fraud, Starmer’s best line included a joke about partygate.

The prime minister’s answer has got a big hole in it. We’ve had lockdown for the last two years. Two crimes that people could commit were online fraud and throwing parties. As far as I can see, the numbers for both of those have gone through the roof.

Johnson resorted to insisting that his government did take fraud carefully. He has been under pressure to clarify his previous, misleading statements to MPs about crime falling, and he will be able to argue that he just about did so today, by providing a more nuanced answer. “We also attach huge importance to tackling neighbourhood crime and crimes of violence, and I am very pleased those crimes are down 17%,” he said. It wasn’t an impresive answer, although the claim that ‘Labour voted against tougher sentences’ must land well with focus groups.

On energy, Starmer focused on the fact that the energy bill part of the Treasury’s “rebate” package is not a rebate at all, but just a loan. He managed to make this point while simultaneously targeting the chancellor (who in the longterm probably poses a bigger threat to Labour than Johnson), while depicting Johnson as an “unwitting sidekick” of his No 11 neighbour. Starmer said:

The prime minister clearly hasn’t got the first clue what the chancellor’s signed him up to. His plan is to hand billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash to energy companies and then force families to pay it off in instalments for years to come. If it sounds like he’s forcing people to take out a loan, and it looks like he’s forcing people to take out a loan, isn’t it just forcing people to take out a loan?

Johnson sounded very bullish, and gave the appearance of being someone who feels his survival prospects have improved considerably in recent days. But his boasting about the strength of the economy will sound hollow as people notice their bills going up, and attacking the Labour plan for a windfall tax on the energy companies on the grounds that it will clobber investment did not sound like much of an argument-clincher (even thought it might be partly true).

Gerald Jones (Lab) asks again about the Daily Mirror photo (see 12.26pm).

Johnson says this is an event that has already been “submitted for investigation”.

He is implying that Sue Gray was aware of it, but that it is not being investigated by the police because it does not meet the threshold for an investigation.

The Gray report (pdf) covered a gathering in No 10 on 15 December 2020 for a Christmas quiz. But Gray said this was one of the four events she looked at that were not now investigated by the police because they were “not considered to have reached the threshold for criminal investigation”.

Mark Harper (Con) asks the PM to promise that, when the police inquiry into partygate is over, he will publish the full Sue Gray report in full.

Johnson says that once that inquiry is over he will immediately publish whatever Sue Gray gives him.

No 10 has made this pledge already, but this is the first time Johnson has made this promise from the dispatch box.

Fabian Hamilton (Lab) says in the last few minutes a party has emerged of the PM in Downing Street on 15 December “surrounded by alcohol, food and people wearing tinsel”. It looks like a party. Will the PM refer this to the police, because it is not one of the ones they are already investigating.

Johnson says Hamilton is “completely in error”.

Hamilton is referring to this story.

Boris Johnson starts by saying on the Monday after the half term recess he will announce a strategy for living with Covid.

He says the government intends to end the last restrictions, including isolating requirements, a full month early.

The isolation rules were due to end on 24 March.

UPDATE: Johnson said:

It is my intention to return on the first day after the half-term recess to present our strategy for living with Covid.

Provided the current encouraging trends in the data continue, it is my expectation that we will be able to end the last domestic restrictions – including the legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive – a full month early.

PMQs will be starting shortly.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

Gillian Keegan, a health minister, has apologised for continuing with a meeting despite being aware she had tested positive for Covid, my colleague Jamie Grierson reports.

Related: UK minister apologises for continuing meeting after positive Covid test

Mark Spencer, the new leader of the Commons, has given an interview to BBC Radio Nottingham saying that Lord Geidt, the independent adviser on ministerial standards, is carrying out the investigation into the allegation that, when he was chief whip, told Nusrat Ghani that her “Muslimness” was one factor behind her losing her ministerial job in 2020.

Spencer told the station that it was a “bit rough” not being able to defend himself in public while the inquiry is being carried out. He said:

That investigation is ongoing … we wait for the results of that.

If I’m honest with you … that is a bit rough, when you’re accused of something of that nature. It’s a bit rough not being able to defend yourself until the results of that investigation come forward.

I’ve just got to keep my mouth shut, present the facts to Lord Geidt who’s doing the investigation, and then once that’s concluded, I think we’ll be able to have a fairly open conversation about that.

Good morning. And I’m sorry for the late start. Boris Johnson faces his final PMQs today before the mini, half-term recess, which will mark a useful survival moment for him. It is widely assumed that if a vote of no confidence has not been called by the time the house rises tomorrow, there won’t be one until MPs return on Monday week. It is still possible for Tories to submit letters to the chair of the 1922 Committee during recess calling for a ballot, but if MPs aren’t at Westminster in person, where plotting is much easier, that is seen as less likely.

Johnson will face the Commons with a moderately revamped ministerial team. Chris Heaton-Harris, the new chief whip, told Newsnight last night:

I would like to think we have a very strong prime minister who is going to continue and get stronger and stronger and lead us into the next election, which we will win comfortably.

But, as my colleague Jamie Grierson reports, Johnson will also go into PMQs with a billionaire Tory donor, John Armitage saying he should quit.

Related: Billionaire Tory donor calls for Boris Johnson to resign

In an interview with the BBC, Armitage suggested that Johnson’s “lack of honour” was deeply concerning. He said:

Politicians should go into politics to do good for their country and that is the overwhelming reason to be in politics. I don’t think it’s about your own personal sense of getting to the top of a snakes-and-ladders game.

And I feel that if you lose moral authority, and if you do things which the average person – your mother, someone who you admire – if you do something or say something which on the front page of the Sunday Times looks terrible, and you do that consistently, and you betray a sense of not really caring, I think you should leave. And I find the lack of honour inherent in modern politics incredibly distressing.

As the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, who broke the story, reports, No 10 is saying Armitage is “behind the times”.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.15am: Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions committee, gives evidence to the Commons work and pensions committee on the cost of living crisis.

10.30am: Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, gives evidence to the Commons science committee on the government’s space strategy.

12pm: Boris Johnson faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.

2pm: The ONS publishes the headline results from its latest Covid infection survey

2.30pm: Sir Jonathan Jones, the former head of the government’s legal department, gives evidence to the Commons European scrutiny committee on retained EU law.

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