Michael Gove denies three-phase lockdown exit plan as he launches staunch defence of Boris Johnson's coronavirus response

Michael Gove insisted the Government "should not be thinking of lifting" lockdown restrictions yet as he launched a staunch defence of Boris Johnson's management of the coronavirus crisis.

Reports from the Mail on Sunday suggested ministers were finalising a three-stage “traffic light” plan that would see outlets like DIY stores and garden centres reopen, and some pupils go back to school in mid-May.

Speaking on Sky's Sophy Ridge of Sunday, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster denied any preparations had been made for a three-phase exit strategy.

He said: "It is the case that we are looking at all of the evidence. We have set some tests which need to be passed before we can think of easing restrictions in this lockdown.

"It's very important that when we are still in the process of making sure we can reduce the rate of infection and also reduce the number of deaths, that we maintain the number of steps that we have."

Mr Gove added that the rate of infection "appeared to be flattening" according to data, but said the Government didn't want to ease restrictions too early.

When asked whether schools and nurseries might be the first to reopen, Mr Gove refused to provide a direct answer.

"I think it would be wrong to get ahead of ourselves here," said Mr Gove.

"The important thing is that we're guided by the facts and scientific evidence that we received.

"And the facts and advice are clear, that at the moment we should not be thinking about lifting these restrictions yet."

Earlier this morning the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson tweeted that “no decision has been made on when we will reopen schools”.

“I can reassure schools and parents that they will only reopen when the scientific advice indicates it is the right time to do so,” he added.

This morning Mr Gove ​also strongly defended Boris Johnson after reports the Prime Minister had not led from the front in the run-up to the Covid-19 outbreak earlier this year.

The allegations against the Prime Minister came from reports in the Sunday Times that Mr Johnson did not attend a raft of Cobra meetings and claimed the Government missed a series of opportunities to try and lessen the impact of the outbreak in February and March.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said: “The idea that the Prime Minister skipped meetings that were vital to our response to the coronavirus, I think is grotesque.”

Mr Gove added: “The Prime Minister took all the major decisions.

“Nobody can say that the Prime Minister wasn’t throwing heart and soul into fighting this virus.

“His leadership has been clear. He’s been inspirational at times.”

He said reports of the Government's response to the crisis, laid out in the Sunday Times, were "off beam", though would not be drawn on details.

However, he later told the BBC's Andrew Marr: "All Governments make mistakes, including our own."

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said that Mr Gove’s line that one or two aspects of The Sunday Times story were off beam is “possibly the weakest rebuttal of a detailed expose in British political history”.

He told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “None of us expect the impossible, we understand that mistakes will be made in a crisis of this nature, but there are serious questions as to why the Prime Minister skipped five Cobra meetings throughout February, when the whole world could see how serious this was becoming.

“And we know that serious mistakes have been made, we know that our front-line NHS staff don’t have the PPE, that they’ve been told this weekend that they won’t necessarily have the gowns which are vital to keep them safe. We know that our testing capacity is not at the level that is needed.

“We know that the ventilators that many hospitals have received are the wrong types of ventilators and there are big questions as to whether we went into this lockdown too slowly, and now we hear the Prime Minister missed five meetings at the start of this outbreak. It suggests that early on he was missing in action.”

Mr Gove's comments come as the Government faces increasing pressure to reveal its exit strategy to the public.

Mr Ashworth called on the Government to stop "treating people like children" and disclose exit strategies to the public.

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He told Sophy Ridge: "People are grown ups and people to need to understand what happens next because the lockdown in itself is not a strategy.

"It's a tool that is part of a strategy. But given that we know that a vaccine might not be available for 18 months, we need to understand what is the Government plan between now and when a vaccine is available.

"We need to know whether the Government has a serious plan to extend testing and contact tracing."

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