MPs have voted in favour of extending coronavirus lockdown laws for a further six months, despite a major Tory revolt.
The Coronavirus Act – granting powers over everything from school closures and public gatherings to the detention of infected people – has been renewed by MPs, by 484 votes to 76.
Conservative anger centred on the decision to renew the crackdown until October – three months beyond the promised lifting of restrictions in June, under Boris Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown.
NHS England has announced it will reduce the national coronavirus emergency incident level, as the number of patients in hospital continues to fall.
Chief executive Simon Stevens said he was recommending that the alert level across the health service should be reduced from level four to level three amid a “very sharp” decrease in the number of patients with Covid in hospital following declining infection rates and the rollout of the vaccination programme.
The decision will hand back some control to local NHS hospitals and comes as NHS England revealed its plan for starting to tackle record backlogs in waits after thousands of operations were cancelled.
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