The Prime Minister has indicated that England might not revert back to regional tiers after the current national lockdown is over.

It has been reported that the PM said, on a visit to a vaccination centre in Batley, West Yorkshire: "It may be that a national approach, going down the tiers in a national way, might be better this time round, given that the disease is behaving much more nationally,"

Keeping an “open mind”, the PM reportedly said "If you look at the way the new variant has taken off across the country, it's a pretty national phenomenon.

"The charts I see, we're all sort of moving pretty much in the same sort of way, I mean there are a few discrepancies, a few differences, so it may be that we will go for a national approach but there may be an advantage still in some regional differentiation as well."

The government is due to set out a roadmap for relaxing lockdown measures in the week beginning 22 February.