Health Secterary Matt Hancock has not ruled out an extension to the lockdown as a health chief warned the tiered system that ministers want England to return to may have to be strengthened.
The Health Secretary said it was “too early for us to know” whether coronavirus cases will be brought down sufficiently to ease the second shutdown on December 2.
The hope is to return to local restrictions, but Public Health England’s Dr Susan Hopkins – standing alongside Mr Hancock at the Downing Street press conference on Monday – said the lowest tier of earlier measures had had “little effect”.
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Dr Hopkins, who is advising the Government’s Covid-19 response, said they would have to consider strengthening the measures “to get us through the winter months until the vaccine is available for everyone”.
Speaking on Sky News on Tuesday morning, Community Secretary Robert Jenrick said said ministers want to see a “significant easing” of coronavirus controls when the lockdown in England is lifted on December 2.
But it is too early to say which tiers particular areas would move into when the country returns to a system of tiered controls.
A decision is due to come next week.
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However he said that any extension of the lockdown would require a vote of Parliament.
“It is our hope and expectation that that won’t be the case and that people in England will be able to move back into the tiered system.
“There will be a review. That work is undergoing on what those tiers look like and how local areas go back in but that will very much depend on the data.
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“We will have to make decisions nearer the end of the month once we have got the most up-to-date information possible.
“So it is too early to say which tiers people will be able to go into. But we all want to see a significant easing of the measures in all parts of England at the beginning of next month.”
Last Friday, The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham told business leaders that there was once the English lockdown comes to an end.
Speaking at a meeting hosted by the Institute of Directors North West, Mayor Andy Burnham said he was not confident that December 2 - the end date of the current restrictions - will see his region placed into the less severe Tiers 1 or 2.
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This morning (Tuesday, November 17) Mr Jenrick was asked on BBC Breakfast if there could be a tougher tier than Tier 3 in the new system.
He said: “We haven’t come to a decision on that,” adding: “The Tier 3 that we had before was just considered a baseline.
“And then we did ask local areas whether they would be willing to go further and some did.
“My own area of Nottinghamshire, the local council chose to go over and above and limit the sale of alcohol for off-licences and so on after a certain time, so that people didn’t go home and have parties or drink alcohol on the streets.
“So there were some tweaks to the tiers that you’re seeing in some parts of the country and it’s that sort of thing that we now need to consider. Was that a sensible move? If so, should we embed that in the new tier structure?”
The Government would like to see “greater consistency” in a potential post-lockdown coronavirus tier system, Mr Jenrick said.
“We will be looking at whether the measures that we had in the old tiers were effective.
“Remember, they varied quite a bit in different parts of the country, because in Tier 3 there was a baseline of measures, which the chief medical officer and others have always said was only the beginning, and we then asked local areas to consider whether they would be willing to go further than that, some did, some decided not to.
“So I think in the new tiers we’d like greater consistency and we’ll have to look at the evidence to see which of those measures was actually the most impactful on the virus so that we take the most evidence-based approach that we can do.
“We haven’t come to a conclusion on that yet, to be perfectly honest, but we will be within the next week or so.”