England's Health Secretary gives update on when he expects lockdown 3 to end

England's Health Secretary Matt Hancock is in the House of Commons for a debate on the third national lockdown.

He told MPs he does not expect regulations enabling a national lockdown to be fully in place until the end of March.

Conservative Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the party’s backbench 1922 Committee, asked in the Commons: “Approving these regulations today would allow for lockdown for three months until the end of March.”

Sir Graham said Prime Minister Boris Johnson had assured him he did not expect MPs to have to “wait that long” for an opportunity to decide whether or not to end the regulations.

Sir Graham added: “Will he go further and give a commitment to a further vote at the end of January and end of February, so this House will have control over what is happening?”

Mr Hancock replied: “While these regulations do provide for new restrictions until the end of March, it is not because we expect the full national lockdown to continue until then but to allow the steady, controlled and evidence-led move down through the tiers on a local basis.

Matt Hancock explains the restrictions for the third covid lockdown being put before Parliament

“Those tier changes do require a vote in Parliament. The restrictions will therefore be kept under continuous review, there’s a statutory requirement to review every two weeks and a legal obligation to remove them if they’re no longer deemed necessary to limit the transmission of the virus.”