Only ‘unprecedented’ incident would block 19 July reopening, Gove insists

Tory and opposition MPs have criticised ministers for their handling of Covid variants and border policy

A second delay to the end of all Covid lockdown restrictions would only occur if something “unprecedented and remarkable” happened before 19 July, Michael Gove has claimed, one day after the government was forced to push back the deadline due to a rise in infections.

Boris Johnson confirmed the final phase of England’s roadmap would be deferred by four weeks, from 21 June to 19 July, at a Downing Street press conference on Monday – telling the media it was “sensible to wait a little longer” to allow more people the chance to get vaccinated.

Leading scientists had warned that the fast-spreading Delta variant, which was first identified in India, would lead to a “significant” rise in hospital admissions if stage four went ahead as planned next Monday.

Mr Gove said he shares the prime minister’s confidence that 19 July “will be the terminus date” and when asked about the circumstances in which it could be extended further, he told Sky News: “It would require an unprecedented and remarkable alteration in the progress of the disease.”

Crucially, though, Mr Johnson last night declined the opportunity to give a “cast-iron guarantee” that the new July deadline would be the true end of lockdown, instead going only as far as to say he was “confident” based on the current data and advice.

This is a tactic Mr Gove seems to have echoed. Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain earlier on Tuesday, the Cabinet Office minister made an outright promise that 19 July would mark the end of lockdown – before withdrawing it moments later.

Asked by host Susanna Reid “can you give us a promise that 19 July will be the end of it?”, Mr Gove replied: “Yes”.

However, he then immediately added: “None of us can predict the future with 100 per cent certainty. There could be something bizarre and unprecedented that occurs.

“But on the basis of all the information we have, then we will have successfully protected such large sections of the population … so we’re as confident as confident can be about that date.”

Tory and opposition MPs lambasted the government after the delay was announced, accusing ministers of incompetence over their handling of a myriad of issues including Covid variants, border policy, and NHS Test and Trace failings.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Monday evening, shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the government’s “sieve”-like border policy allowed the Delta variant to enter Britain and become the dominant strain.

He told MPs: “Rather than red-listing this variant, we essentially gave it the red-carpet treatment as 20,000 people were allowed to arrive from India over a number of weeks in April, even though the warning signs were there.

“That essentially seeded this Delta variant across the country.”

At the same session, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas added there was an “utter failure to suppress the virus through basic infection control: tracing and isolation”.

Addressing health secretary Matt Hancock, who was taking questions, and fellow MPs, she asked if he felt “any shame that the reason we have to delay the end of these restrictions is entirely down to the incompetence of his government”.

“It is a disaster,” she added, before telling the chamber any assurances Mr Hancock could give were “too little, too late”.

Asked on Times Radio what his thoughts where on the government’s failing to put India on the red travel list quicker, Mr Gove said: “We can always look back and wish that we’d done things differently but we operated on the basis of facts that we had at the time, and India was placed on the red list before the Delta variant was a... variant of concern.

“And again, you know, the decisions that ministers, that doctors, that scientists have to take can never be made with perfect knowledge.”

Several scientists have suggested the Delta variant would have made its way into the UK at some point regardless of stricter border policies.

Asked whether it would have made a difference if Britain had stopped people coming from India in early April, Professor Graham Medley, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: “Potentially – I mean it’s speculation.

“The newer Delta variant is now quite common around the globe so it would have ended up in the United Kingdom at some point, but perhaps it would have been delayed.

“It’s really the competition between the virus and the vaccine so, had the variant arrived in the country when we'd had more people vaccinated, then it may well not have grown in the same way that it has.”

A slew of Tory backbenchers expressed their anger over the delay to easing restrictions, with former minister Mark Harper, chairman of the Covid Recovery Group (CRG), telling LBC radio he thinks “we could have moved ahead perfectly safely on 21 June”.

“Some of us, I’m afraid, are a bit worried that we’re not going to actually move forward on 19 July,” he said.

“Ultimately we’ve reduced the risk of this disease hugely by our fantastic vaccination programme, and, as the government says, we’ve got to learn to live with it, but the problem is every time we get to that point, ministers seem to not actually want to live with it and keep restrictions in place.”

However, Prof Medley said delaying the roadmap was necessary and that it is still possible the UK could return to seeing hundreds of coronavirus deaths a day.

Mr Johnson told the press conference on Monday that “at a certain stage we’re going to have to learn to live with the virus and to manage it as best we can”, but said this would be better aided by increasing the number of people vaccinated when restrictions come to an end.

“At the end of [the four-week delay] ... we do think that we will have built up a very considerable wall of immunity around the whole of the population,” he added.

Subsequently, Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, announced that all those over the age of 18 should be able to book a vaccination “by the end of this week”, and that the NHS aims to offer second doses to two thirds of adults by 19 July.

More than 41 million people across the UK have so far had a first vaccine – 78 per cent of the adult population – while some 30 million have had a second.