Boris Johnson warns of ‘disastrous consequences’ for NHS without Covid tier restrictions

PM offers to lift tier system in early February to appease rebel Tory MPs

Boris Johnson has warned of "disastrous consequences" for the NHS unless the tougher three-tier system of coronavirus restrictions is introduced next week.

The prime minister urged the nation to stick to the rules over the winter as he attempted to quell a rebellion by Tory MPs ahead of a crucial vote on Tuesday.

"We can't blow it now," he wrote in the Mail on Sunday. "We can't just throw it all away - not when freedom is in sight. We have worked too hard, lost too many, sacrificed too much, just to see our efforts incinerated in another volcanic eruption of the virus."

Mr Johnson claimed Easter would mark a "real chance to return to something like life as normal" as he compared the imminent arrival of a vaccine to the "morale-boosting bugle-blasting excitement of Wellington's Prussian allies coming through the woods on the afternoon of Waterloo".

He added: "We are so nearly out of our captivity. We can see the sunlit upland pastures ahead. But if we try to jump the fence now, we will simply tangle ourselves in the last barbed wire, with disastrous consequences for the NHS.

"So let's do the job properly. Let's work together, and with tiering, testing and vaccines let's make 2021 the year we kick covid out, take back control of our lives and reclaim all the things we love."

Tory MPs have accused the government of exaggerating the threat to the NHS after Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove warned on Friday that every hospital in England could be overwhelmed by coronavirus cases.

Tobias Ellwood, who could vote against the government's new tier system on Tuesday, argued that the seven NHS Nightingale hospitals built during the pandemic were now "largely empty". He added: "Let’s not place areas in higher tiers, due to local bed pressure when other beds lie empty."

Facing a growing mutiny, Mr Johnson offered MPs a “sunset clause” that could end the government’s controversial new coronavirus tier system on 3 Feburary rather than the end of March.

He also promised the government will review tier areas every fortnight and bring the regulations before parliament for a second vote after the fourth review on 27 January.

The new restrictions will see 99 per cent of the country placed in the two tiers with the most severe measures, including a ban on household mixing indoors and restrictions on bars and restaurants.

Only the Isle of Wight, Cornwall, and the Isles of Scilly will be under the lightest Tier 1 controls.

Additional reporting by Press Association