Coronavirus restrictions should be lifted so that people can make their own decisions about the risks they are prepared to take, a former Australian prime minister has said.
Tony Abbott, who is tipped to become joint president of Britain's relaunched Board of Trade, questioned whether strict lockdown measures were proportionate to the disease.
In an address to the Policy Exchange think tank in London, he said: "From a health perspective, this pandemic has been serious. From an economic perspective, it has been disastrous.
"But I suspect that, from an overall wellbeing perspective, it will turn out worst of all.
"Because this is what happens when, for much more than a mere moment, we let fear of falling sick stop us from being fully alive.
"Now that each one of us has had six months to consider this pandemic and to make our own judgments about it, surely it is time to relax the rules so that individuals can take more personal responsibility and make more of their own decisions about the risks that they are prepared to run?"
He also warned that lockdown measures could be kept up "indefinitely" in the absence of a vaccine.
He said they can produce not just a "top-start economy, but a stop-start life".
Mr Abbott declined to comment on reports that he has been appointed joint president of Britain’s relaunched Board of Trade.
A number of new advisory groups have been set up to support the UK’s post-Brexit trade talks.
The UK’s Department for International Trade has set up 11 groups covering a range of areas, such as investment, life sciences, and financial services, to help advise on negotiations.
Advice given by organisations and stakeholders comprising the groups will then be used to help inform the Government’s negotiating position.
No decisions about the Board of Trade have yet been made, Whitehall officials said.
