British minister says “too early” to plan for Christmas

The UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma has said it is too early to set out Covid rules for Christmas, following several newspaper reports that the government has plans to let families mix for five days.

The Sun reported that the government is considering relaxing restrictions from Christmas Eve.

The UK is currently in lockdown – with all non essential shops and leisure closed – officially until December 2, when the government has said it will return to a “tier system”.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma said he wanted things to be as “normal” as possible, but it was too early for any decisions to be made saying everyone had to “do our bit”.

Asked when a decision would be made, he told BBC Breakfast: We just have to see where we get to. I certainly would like to have as normal a Christmas as possible,” he said, but warned it may not be “as normal” as previous years.

On Monday the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the government hoped the national lockdown would be replaced on 2 December with a tiered system “similar to what we had before”

Read more via BBC