Hope for children to be back in the classroom from early March, Prime Minister announces

The Prime Minister said today it would not be possible for pupils to return to schools immediately after the February half-term as had been hoped.

Speaking in the Commons Mr Johnson warned the country remained in “a perilous situation with more than 37,000 patients now in hospital with Covid, almost double the peak of the first wave”, but he said “the first sign of normality” would be pupils going back to school in person.

He said: “If we achieve our target of vaccinating everyone in the four most vulnerable groups with their first dose by February 15, and every passing day sees more progress towards that goal, then those groups (will) have developed immunity from the virus about three-weeks later, that is by March 8.

“We hope it will therefore be safe to begin the reopening of schools from Monday, March 8.”

He said children eligible for food parcels or vouchers will receive these until they return to school.

And he added a “programme of catch-up” would be put in place for pupils as well as summer schools.

He added: “We will provide a programme of catch-up over the next financial year and this will involve a further £300m of new money for schools for tutoring.

“And we will work in collaboration with the education sector to develop specific initiatives for summer schools and the Covid premium to support catch-up.”

He added: “With other economic and social restrictions being removed thereafter as and when the data permits… then or thereafter I should say.”

The Prime Minister has come under increasing pressure from his own MPs to outline a plan for exiting lockdown.

And he said today: “So far our efforts do appear to have reduced the R rate but we do not yet have enough data to know exactly how soon it will be safe to reopen our society and economy.”

But he pledged that after the Commons returns from recess on February 22, he would publish a roadmap out of restrictions.

“That plan will of course depend on the continued success of our vaccination programme, the capacity of the NHS and on deaths falling at the pace we would expect as more people are inoculated,” he said.

“I know the measures I am setting out today will be deeply frustrating to many honourable friends and colleagues, and disappointing for all of us.

“But the way forward has been clear ever since the vaccines arrived and as we inoculate more people hour by hour, this is the time to hold our nerve in the end game of the battle against the virus.

“Our goal now must be to buy the extra weeks we need to immunise the most vulnerable and get this virus under control so that together we can defeat this most wretched disease, reclaim our lives once and for all.”

Responding to the Prime Minister’s announcements, Sir Keir Starmer criticised Mr Johnson for challenging him to declare that schools are safe when they are not able to open until March.

He said: “Even for this Prime Minister, it’s quite something to open schools one day, close them the next, to call them vectors of transmission and then to challenge me to say that schools he’s closed are safe.

“Only now to give a statement where he says that schools can’t open until March 8 at the earliest because it’s not safe to do so. That’s his analysis, it’s the sort of nonsense that’s led us to the highest death toll in Europe and the worst recession.

“But of course we welcome any steps in reopening schools and we’re going to look at the detail of how the Education Secretary (Gavin Williamson) plans to deliver this and the plans to deliver online learning.”

Mr Johnson responded: “He knows perfectly well that the problem is not that schools are unsafe, they are not unsafe, schools are safe and he should say it and his union paymasters should hear him say it loud and clear.

“The problem is that they bring communities together, obviously, and large numbers of kids are a considerable vector of transmission. It’s not that there’s any particular extra risk to those involved in education.”