MPs to debate and vote on new COVID restrictions on Tuesday

MPs will debate and vote on whether to approve the government’s new coronavirus restrictions on Tuesday, Jacob Rees-Mogg has confirmed.

The measures, which are due to come into force at 4am tomorrow morning, include face coverings being made mandatory once more in shops and on public transport and the return of day two PCR tests for anyone who enters the UK from abroad.

Travellers returning to the country will be required to self-isolate until they get a negative result, while those who come into contact with someone who tests positive for the Omicron variant will need to self-isolate for 10 days – even if they are fully vaccinated.

Making a statement in the Commons on Tuesday, Mr Rees-Mogg confirmed that MPs will be able to take part in a three-hour debate on the restrictions on Tuesday before voting on the measures.

The Commons leader said the timings allow for “quite a wide debate”.

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Addressing the country at a news briefing on Saturday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the measures as “temporary and precautionary” – and said they will be reviewed in three weeks’ time.

While the prime minister refused to say whether further restrictions could be imposed, he said he is “confident” that this Christmas will be “considerably better than the last”.

Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Mr Rees-Mogg said “we all hope that in three weeks these rules will expire” but added that he “cannot give any guarantees”.

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Earlier, Health Secretary Sajid Javid told MPs: “If it emerges that this variant is no more dangerous than the Delta variant, then we won’t keep measures in place for a day longer than necessary.”

But MPs from both sides of the house have raised concern that in three weeks’ time, they are due to be on Christmas recess and will be unable to debate the measures once more.

Conservative Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire, questioned how MPs would be given a say on the new measures when it is due in the middle of recess.

He told the Commons: “How will there be parliamentary scrutiny of the government’s review measures or will we be having government by diktat?”

Mr Javid replied that he thought “the approach the government has set out is the right one”.

Fellow Conservative MP and chair of the backbench 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady said he welcomed a debate and vote on the restrictions, but that it would be better to have done so before they come into force.

Meanwhile, Tory MP Sir Desmond Swayne suggested wearing face coverings to provide protection from the virus is “mumbo jumbo”.

Elsewhere, questioned by MPs after delivering a statement on the new Omicron variant, Mr Javid did not explicitly rule out the return of lockdown measures.

Conservative MP Richard Drax asked: “Can (Mr Javid) please reassure me, the House and the country that he will never, ever go back to locking this country down?”

Mr Javid replied: “No-one wants to see those kinds of measures, but (Mr Drax) I’m sure will agree with me that… first let me agree with him that COVID is with us to stay and we need to learn to live with it, and the best way I think we can do that is with the primary form of defence that we’ve got, which is our vaccination programme, and I hope he agrees with me that we’re absolutely right to basically put the booster programme on steroids because that will really help us.”

But the health secretary gave a much stronger response on his determination not to close schools once more.

Conservative MP and chairman of the influential Commons Education Select Committee Robert Halfon called for confirmation that schools would not be closed early for the Christmas holidays despite concerns regarding the new Omicron variant.

“There are no plans that I am aware of that would require us to close schools early, I think that would be very detrimental to the education of children,” Mr Javid said.

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Earlier on Monday, it was announced that all adults will be offered a COVID-19 booster vaccine as the government backed a far reaching expansion of the jabs programme to deal with the potential impact of the Omicron variant.

On Monday afternoon, the UK’s vaccine advisory body – the Joint Committee on Vaccine and Immunisation (JCVI) – recommended:

• Booster jabs for everybody over the age of 18

• Shortening the gap between a second jab and a booster from six months to three months

• Giving a second jab to children aged between 12 and 15 – again after no less than three months

• Severely immunosuppressed people given access to another booster – meaning for some, a fourth dose this winter

• Boosters consisting of either a Pfizer vaccine or a half dose of the Moderna jab

Delivering a statement in the Commons shortly afterwards, Health Secretary Sajid Javid confirmed that the government will be taking on board all of the recommendations “in full”.

It comes as the number of cases of the new Omicron variant in the UK reached double figures.

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