Coronavirus: Iain Duncan Smith says government should reconsider two-metre rule to get economy moving

Former Tory leader urges No 10 to ‘show some flexibility’ over social-distancing guidance to help businesses reopen

The former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith has called on Boris Johnson to reconsider the two-metre social-distancing rule to help kick-start getting the economy.

Current government guidance — based on advice from No 10’s scientific advisers — requires people to stay two metres apart when outdoors to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The Tory MP said “we’re the only country certainly in Europe that I know of” that uses the two-metre directive — pointing out that the World Health Organisation recommends people remain only one metre apart.

Suggesting a relaxation of the rule would help many business, Sir Iain told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We need to get [the economy] moving as quick as possible and I’ve certainly been arguing that for some weeks now.

“I visited a restaurant the other day that had made plans to lessen the distance between tables by putting up Perspex screens between. I think the government is going to have to look very carefully and try and show some flexibility.

“I think when it comes to the hospitality sector, I think we do need to look at it very carefully. We do need to look at how they manage that [social distancing] process and give them some flexibility.

“All I’m saying is that in certain conditions like restaurants … maybe they can look at that because that in itself with help encourage the economy quite a lot.”

Earlier this month, the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance defended the two metre rule, telling MPs the risk of transmitting the virus at one metre is about 10 to 30 times higher than the risk at two metres.

However, Professor Robert Dingwall, a sociologist who sits on the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG), has claimed that the two-metre advice has “never had much of an evidence base” and was “conjured up out of nowhere”.

Some ministers have reportedly also raised questions over the two-metre rule, and were said to have asked the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) at the beginning of May to look again at whether people really need to stay that far apart.

Iain Duncan Smith has said two-metre should be changed (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

Responding the latest figure showing 856,000 people submitted benefit claims in April, Sir Iain said a continued rise in unemployed would depend “first and foremost (on) how quickly are we able to get the economy moving”.

The former Tory leader said he was also concerned about too much government borrowing in the months ahead. “We can’t run an economy like this — we have to have the economy free,” he said.

“We’re going to have to pick this cost up ... it’s the British people that will have to be paying that, and that burden will fall heaviest on those on low incomes.”