Portrait of the week: MPs return, dentists reopen and racing resumes

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Primary schools were allowed to reopen but many did not want to. MPs voted to return to their physical presence in parliament. The government told people they were allowed to meet in gardens or on rooftops, up to the number of six, as long as those from different households remained two metres apart. About 2.5 million vulnerable people in England and Wales, who had been advised to stay at home, were now advised that those living alone might meet another single person out of doors. Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP for Canterbury, resigned as a whip after she was found to have gone for a walk with her current partner at a time that he was still living with his wife. Racing resumed. The Queen rode a fell pony at Windsor Castle.

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Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, extended the furlough scheme, under which 8.4 million workers receive 80 per cent of their pay, to the end of October. From August, employers would have to pay National Insurance and pension contributions, then 10 per cent of pay from September, rising to 20 per cent in October. About 2.3 million self-employed people would be eligible in August for 70 per cent of their average profits for another three months, up to £6,570.

At the beginning of the week, Sunday 31 May, total deaths from confirmed Covid-19 in the UK stood at 38,376; a week earlier the total had been 36,675. Dentists were allowed to reopen from 8 June. The Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government urged councils to reopen public lavatories; they remained closed. Despite plans to release 4,000 prisoners early, only 80 had been let out. The Service Prosecution Authority said that, of the thousands of allegations against the British military after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (more than 1,000 cases being brought by Phil Shiner, a solicitor now struck off), only one was still being examined.