Boris Johnson warned not to ‘backslide’ on date for return of schools

Downing Street backs away from PM’s pledge to deliver roadmap to recovery on 22 February

Boris Johnson has been warned not to “backslide” on the lifting of lockdown, after Downing Street appeared to back away from his promise to set out a roadmap to recovery on 22 February.

The chair of the Covid Recovery Group of backbench Conservative MPs, Mark Harper, warned that any delay must not be allowed to put at risk the planned 8 March reopening of schools in England to all pupils.

And the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, said: “The prime minister said he’s aiming for 8 March, he needs to keep to that. We do need to get our schools open.”

Ministers have promised to give headteachers two weeks’ notice of the return to classrooms, in order to allow them to prepare for Covid-secure face-to-face lessons.

That would require an announcement no later than a week on Monday. 

When he first named 8 March as the earliest date on which he was ready to contemplate reopening schools, Mr Johnson said he would set out firm plans in a “roadmap” for easing England’s third national lockdown to be released in the week commencing 22 February.

However, both he and other ministers later said that the roadmap would come on 22 February itself – fuelling expectations that he was committed to the 8 March date for school reopening.

But on Thursday, the prime minister’s official spokesman said: “We’ve been clear we will publish the roadmap in the week of the 22nd.”

The spokesperson said: “We will set out the roadmap that week but you’ve got what we’ve said previously about trying to give schools as much notice as possible and we’ve said we’ll give at least two weeks.”

Mr Harper said: “The prime minister, vaccines minister and health secretary have all confirmed that the plan for lifting restrictions would come on 22 February.

“It’s crucial we don’t backslide on this, not least because the government has said it wants to give schools two weeks notice before they open, and – as the PM said – it is the ‘settled will’ of most MPs that pupils should be back in school on 8 March.”

Tory MP William Wragg raised a point of order on the issue in the Commons, warning that a statement after 22 February risked “pushing it towards Easter” before pupils could return to class.

But a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) warned that it was not sensible to set out a roadmap at all at the moment.

Wellcome Trust director Sir Jeremy Farrar suggested daily infections needed to fall dramatically before any such move could be considered.

“Transmission is still incredibly high in the UK. If transmission were still at this level and we were not in lockdown, we would be going into lockdown,” he told the BBC.

His comments came after another Sage member, Professor John Edmunds, said “we will have to be under some kind of restrictions for some time” until adults had received two vaccine doses.