Matt Hancock has said there is a "high degree of confidence" that covid jabs work against the Indian variant.
The UK Health Secretary said that it is " appropriate " to push on with the easing of lockdown tomorrow despite warnings from scientists and medics.
The Tory minister warned the highly transmissible variant could " spread like wildfire among the unvaccinated groups" as he urged people to come forward for jabs when eligible.
Hancock was also forced to defend the UK Government against criticism it acted too late in imposing heightened border restrictions for travel from India.
The Cabinet minister said there are now more than 1,300 cases of the so-called Indian variant in total and it is becoming "the dominant strain" in areas including Bolton and Blackburn in the North West.
There has also been cases identified across parts of Scotland over the last couple of weeks. The majority of mainland Scotland, apart from Moray and Glasgow, will move to Level Two with the island communities shifting down to Level One.
Testing and vaccine programmes have been rolled out across the parts of the south side of Glasgow to help prevent the spread of the virus.
But offering good news to plans to ease restrictions without unleashing a fresh wave of infections and deaths, Hancock said there is "new very early data" from Oxford University giving confidence that existing vaccines work against the variant.
"That means that we can stay on course with our strategy of using the vaccine to deal with the pandemic and opening up carefully and cautiously but we do need to be really very vigilant to the spread of the disease," he told Sky's Sophy Ridge On Sunday.
"We have a high degree of confidence that the vaccine will overcome."
Over the course of Saturday Glaswegians in areas most impacted by Covid have been receiving text messages outlining details of their appointment for their first dose - with some jabs taking place as early as next week.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde had been previously working its way through those aged over 45 - but the rollout has now been expanded to those in the 'most affected' areas of the city.
The Pollokshields and Battlefield districts of the city have been identified as 'Covid hotspots' after significant pockets on infection emerged.
A spokesperson for NHSGGC said: "We are actively pursuing ways to ensure vaccination uptake is as high as possible in the areas with the largest increases of cases.
"This will include encouraging and supporting people who previously opted not to receive their vaccination to arrange an appointment. We will be contacting these individuals directly and offering them appointments in the coming weeks.
"We would like to encourage all residents of Greater Glasgow and Clyde to continue to follow Scottish Government guidelines, take your vaccination when offered and make use of our asymptomatic testing facilities to ensure if you unknowingly have the virus, you can then self-isolate and help to stop the spread."
The Scottish Government announced on Sunday that no covid deaths had been recorded in the last 24 hours while 292 cases were identified in that time.
16,003 tests were carried out with two per cent returning a positive result.
A total of 3,020,335 have received their first jab while 1,621,031 people have been given their second covid vaccine.
