Government refuses to be drawn on lifting Leicester lockdown

The Health Secretary Matt Hancock has refused to say whether lockdown restriction in Leicester could be lifted later this week.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Hancock replied to a question from Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth on when lockdown restrictions would lifted on the city, and how this would be communicated.

Hancock said he wouldn’t “pre-judge” the decision to be made on Thursday on whether lockdown measures, which were reinstated on the city on 30 June after a spike in new cases, would be lifted.

He added: “We will look at 14 days of data and we’ll look at that on Thursday and make a public announcement as soon as reasonably possible. The number of positive cases is coming down, but is still ahead of the rest of the country.”