Some rather interesting news has come out of Prime Minister’s Questions today…
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to give a highly-anticipated speech on Sunday, detailing the UK government’s plan to start lifting the lockdown, now reaching the end of its sixth week. But he gave us a little preview of plans today, when he responded to a question at the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions with news that he hopes to start easing some of the lockdown measures on Monday.
Responding to a question about the unusual timing of the Sunday speech, and why he wasn’t heading to the House of Commons to deliver the news first, the Prime Minister stated that “we want, if we possibly can, to get going with some of these measures [to ease the lockdown] on Monday.”
Though an exit strategy was widely expected to appear on Sunday – with the lockdown due another review on Thursday, May 7 – news that easing measures could begin as early as Monday is a surprise to many. Johnson stressed that the government would be gathering as much data as possible before making these decisions, and that his wish for a Sunday speech was because “it would be good a thing […] if people had an idea of what’s coming the following day”.
There was no word on which measures might be relaxed on Monday, but Johnson was sure to note that the government wouldn’t relax them in a way which would trigger a second wave of infections – so any progress is likely to be slow and steady.
We’ll keep you updated as soon as we know more, but Sunday’s exit strategy will hopefully provide the full picture.