Foreign Office minister James Cleverly said the Government wanted to ease local lockdowns “as soon as it was safe to do so”.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “We have had to put in restrictions that none of us would naturally want to do, certainly not on the Conservative benches.
“In other political parties it may be something different but on the Conservative side, these are things that we would not necessarily want to do but we have to in order to protect people’s lives.
“And that means you take actions which you find uncomfortable and I think actually the big difference is that we will look to relieve those restrictions as soon as it is safe to do so.”
Responding to reports that tax rises could be used to pay for the Government’s Covid spending, Mr Cleverly added: “We have put in a package of support which was absolutely the right thing to do.
“And that will mean that money has to be recouped but we can do that in a way by growing the economy, by helping the economy bounce back better and that’s why we have our ‘build back better’ agenda so we can get our economy back to where it needs to be.”
