Boris Johnson says three tier system could last for just nine weeks

The Prime Minister has said the country’s new three tier system has a ‘sunset’ of February 3.

Boris Johnson has written to Tory MPs ahead of a Commons vote on the restrictions on Tuesday in an attempt to win over backbenchers opposed to his plans.

The PM has angered some of his party with a plan to impose stringent restrictions across much of England when the national lockdown ends on Wednesday and could struggle to get it through Parliament.

Many Tory MPs and council leaders are furious that their areas have been placed under stricter tiers when local coronavirus cases are comparatively low, demanding to see more hard data before they support the move.

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Others fear for the impact on the impact of the economy, with reports that a return to a tier system could cost the economy £900million every day.

In his letter, Johnson insisted measures for local areas would be reviewed every fortnight and that MPs would have a chance to extend or scrap them after a sunset clause of February 3.

The regulations will be brought before Parliament on January 27, after the fourth two-week review, when the Commons will decide on whether the tier system stays in place until the end of March.

Johnson also said the first review on December 16 would consider the views of local public health directors, with a final decision on whether any areas should change tiers made at a Cabinet committee – These changes would come into effect on December 19.

In a further olive branch to MPs, the Prime Minister committed to publish more data and outline what circumstances need to change for an area to move down a tier, as well analysis of the health, economic and social impacts of the measures taken to suppress coronavirus.

Only the Isle of Wight, Cornwall, and the Isles of Scilly will be under the lightest tier one controls, while large swathes of the Midlands, North East and North West are in the most restrictive third tier.

In total, 99% of England will enter tier two or three, with tight restrictions on bars and restaurants and a ban on households mixing indoors when the four-week national lockdown lifts on Wednesday.

The Prime Minister’s letter comes after senior government sources suggested it was ‘unrealistic’ to expect areas in tiers two and three to be downgraded to one before spring.

At Thursday’s Downing Street press conference, Johnson told the nation ‘your tier is not your destiny’, but this was slapped down by England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, who said it was unlikely that areas would move down the scale.

Several senior Tories have expressed opposition to the three tier system, including the 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady who said he wanted to see people ‘treated as adults’ and trusted with their own health decisions.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions: ‘I find so many people have been engaged in a wholly responsible way in trying to make sure they can continue some kind of family life, some kind of social life, but being safe, being responsible throughout.

‘Especially the older people, who are typically more vulnerable to Covid-19, are also the people who are likely to be most responsible.’

Tory MP Craig Mackinlay, who represents South Thanet which has the second highest R-rate in the UK, said he is planning to vote against the new tiered restrictions on Tuesday.

He told BBC Breakfast that he would instead favour natural ‘self-regulation’ which he says happens when people see the R-rate in their local area starting to rise.

But Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, urged MPs to think what the NHS might be like in January.

He said: ‘You need to take the precautions now to ensure that the NHS doesn’t get overwhelmed at what is always its busiest time of year.’

The Prime Minister acknowledged yesterday that people felt ‘frustrated’, particularly in areas with low infection rates which now face tighter restrictions than before the lockdown.

He said: ‘The difficulty is that if you did it any other way, first of all you’d divide the country up into loads and loads of very complicated sub-divisions – there has got to be some simplicity and clarity in the way we do this.

‘The second problem is that, alas, our experience is that, when a high incidence area is quite close to a low incidence area, unless you beat the problem in the high incidence area, the low incidence area, I’m afraid, starts to catch up.’

Meanwhile, Conservative former health secretary Lord Lansley said the Government was ‘wrong’ to relax coronavirus restrictions over Christmas, though admitted saying so made him ‘feel like the Grinch’.

Asked in an interview with Times Radio whether ministers had made an error by allowing families to gather for five days over the festive period, he said: ‘I think the short answer is yes – I think it was wrong…

‘We’ve got to protect old people. And it really is difficult, I think, to suddenly say Christmas, well, let’s not do that. Let’s allow people to mix. Why would we do that?

‘We are potentially only maybe weeks, well, perhaps months, but not many months away from the point at which we may be able to vaccinate the most vulnerable and our oldest population?

‘Why expose them to any risk in that period? Why allow transmission potentially to accelerate even for a short period?’

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