Boris Johnson has been accused of sowing “confusion” after Downing Street published a “muddled” plan to ease coronavirus lockdown restrictions in one part of the UK.
Under the much-maligned slogan “stay alert, control the virus, save lives”, the prime minister unveiled a 60-page strategy yesterday outlining how certain social distancing restrictions would be relaxed in England from this week.
Mr Johnson told the UK Parliament the “roadmap” for lifting restrictions would enable the country to “control” the disease.
He said the public should exercise “good, solid, British common sense” in adapting their lives to the next phase of the coronavirus response.
Measures under the England-only plan include:
– The Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) being asked to look at the idea of a household “bubble” in the coming weeks, where one household is allowed to join up with and interact with one other household only.
– International travellers being asked to quarantine for 14 days when they enter the country, either in accommodation of their choice or provided by the Government if there are no other options.
– A return of primary schools for a month before the summer holidays.
– Non-essential retail such as clothes and shoe shops being reopened in June.
– Cultural and sporting events able to take place behind closed doors for broadcast from next month, thereby avoiding the risk of large-scale social contact.
Leaders in the devolved nations along with Labour leader Keir Starmer expressed concern over the decision not to proceed with a “four-nation approach” to tackling the virus and said the new approach lacked “clarity”, while former Tory Chancellor George Osborne branded the plan “muddled” on twitter.
Sir Keir said: “There’s not consensus either on messaging now or on policy between the UK Government and those in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, not something I know he wanted to see, but now we’re in that position there’s a real danger of divergence.”
He added: “What the country needs at this time is clarity and reassurance and at the moment both are in pretty short supply and at the heart of the problem, it seems, is that the Prime Minister made a statement last night before the plan was written, or at least finalised and that has caused considerable confusion.”
Nicola Sturgeon made a plea to Scots “not to get distracted” by messages from Mr Johnson; instead, she said, they must continue to follow Scottish Government guidance, requiring them to stay at home unless it is essential.
“I want to reiterate those announcements do not apply yet here in Scotland,” she said.
“That is not, let me stress, for any political reason, it is because the Scottish Government is not yet confident these changes can be made safely in Scotland yet without running the risk of the virus potentially running out of control again.”
Mr Johnson, who was asked about the diverging approaches at the daily Downing Street press briefing, said: “We have a situation in the UK where the disease, the epidemic is in different stages in different places, and it’s entirely right that different devolved administrations are taking slightly different approaches to deal with the epidemic in their nation, and we respect that and support that.
“When you look at the totality of the approach I really think that the unity between us is far more significant than the differences, and I can tell you that every member of Cobra, that was there yesterday, from all the devolved nations, was absolutely determined to have a UK-wide solution to this.”
He added: “You’ve got to respect local issues, local flare-ups, local problems and part of the solution is responding in a particular part of the country, which we detect with our Covid Alert system, then we will be firefighting, doing whack-a-mole as that issue arises.
Our struggle against this virus has placed our country under the kind of strain that will be remembered for generations, but so too has the response of the British people.”
Boris Johnson
“Having a local, regional, national approach makes sense, but it also makes sense to have a strong UK approach as well.”
It comes as the Government estimates that, as of May 9, some 136,000 people in England are currently infected with Covid-19.
Mr Johnson told MPs: “Our struggle against this virus has placed our country under the kind of strain that will be remembered for generations, but so too has the response of the British people.
“Let me summarise, by saying that people should stay alert, by working from home if you possibly can, by limiting contact with others, by keeping your distance to two metres apart where possible, washing your hands regularly, and if you or anyone in your household has symptoms, you all need to self-isolate.
“Because if everyone stays alert and follows the rules, we can control the virus, keep the rate of infection down and keep the number of infections down.
“And that is how you save lives and to save livelihoods as we begin to recover from coronavirus.”