Prime Minister Boris Johnson has defended the use of localised measures to combat Covid-19 across the UK.
Mr Johnson told MPs “strong local action” was needed in response to “a serious and growing” virus resurgence. Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer asked how people could be expected to understand and follow rules when the PM himself had failed to make them clear. Mr Johnson said he had “cleared up” a mistaken comment he made on rules for the North East “as fast as I could”.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir asked how the government planned to move towns and cities out of local restrictions, as some people in places such as Bradford had not seen their families for “months”. Mr Johnson said “nobody wants to impose restrictions of this kind” but that “frankly, when you have the virus going up in the way that it is now in some parts of the country, you have to take strong local action”.
He added that “one important difference” in the way the virus was now spreading in the UK was “it does appear at the moment as though the illness is more localised. That’s why you need direct local action of the kind that we’re taking, in addition to the strong national measures that we announced last week,” he said.
Sir Keir accused Mr Johnson of stoking “widespread confusion” around the localised rules in parts of north-east England, where people will no longer be allowed to mix with anyone outside their own household in any indoor setting – although support bubbles are exempt.
On Tuesday, the prime minister failed to clarify restrictions on social gatherings in north-east England, hours after junior minister Gillian Keegan was unable to answer questions on the rules.
In regard to the error he made about those rules on Tuesday – when questioned by Channel 5 – Mr Johnson told the House of Commons: “I cleared that matter up as fast as I could. It’s very clear that you shouldn’t mix [households] indoors either at home or in [a] hospitality setting, [and] you should avoid socialising outdoors.
“We need to apply that in the North East because that is where is it spiking. I think people do understand why we are doing that, I think people do get it.”