Having dealt with several constituency issues in the morning, our Defence Select Committee held a trial run through of our newly acquired virtual facility to see if we could all see and hear each other. This was a rehearsal for our oral evidence session with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace tomorrow. To cut a long story short, it did work, and well. Next up was another conference call with NFU President Minette Batters. Several parliamentary colleagues joined the session. There is a growing frustration with Defra at its lack of action on the crisis facing the dairy industry, where many dairy farmers are simply pouring the milk down the drain. We left it that my colleague Geoffrey Clifton-Brown would attempt to invite Mr Eustice to a conference call with all of us. Meanwhile, deaths in England and Wales have nearly doubled above what would be expected, hitting a 20-year high. The Office for National Statistics said there were 18,500 deaths in the week up to 10 April - about 8,000 more than is normal at this time of year. A third were linked to coronavirus, but deaths from other causes also increased, suggesting the lock-down may be having an indirect impact on health. But experts believe this period could well be when virus deaths peaked. As you'd imagine, the Government is doing all that it can to develop a coronavirus vaccine. Matt Hancock told the daily Downing Street briefing that human trials for a vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford, would begin on Thursday. He also addressed the shortage of protective gear for the NHS, saying the government was talking to thousands of suppliers, but not all could deliver. Finally, home tests for coronavirus should be available to NHS staff across the UK "very soon", according to the government's testing co-ordinator. Professor John Newton acknowledged that health and care workers have struggled to access testing sites.