What time is Boris Johnson's announcement on South Yorkshire lockdown today, October 21?
BORIS Johnson will make a statement today (October 21) on whether South Yorkshire will be going into tier 3 lockdown.
The Prime Minister will announce the region will move to the highest lockdown restrictions by the weekend.
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What time is Boris Johnson's announcement today?
Boris Johnson will face MPs for Prime Minister's Questions today at midday.
He is expected to make another statement about South Yorkshire later.
What is the PM expected to announce?
The Prime Minister is expected to announce that South Yorkshire will agree Tier 3 measures today.
The region will be plunged into a Tier 3 lockdown from Saturday – with Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster and Barnsley facing tougher rules after a £41million deal.
Around 1.8million people will go into extra restrictions, Sheffield's Mayor Dan Jarvis announced today.
Speaking on Sky News earlier today, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick did not rule out the area moving to Tier 3 and revealed ministers and local leaders may be "on the cusp of an agreement".
He said: "It's not right for me to pre-empt a full statement that the prime minister and [Sheffield city region mayor] Dan Jarvis will make later today.
"But we have had very successful conversations with him and with the leaders in South Yorkshire.
"Again there's a serious situation there and rightly they wanted to take action.
"We've discussed that over the course of yesterday and early this morning and an announcement will be made shortly."
Boris Johnson has said the country is on a "narrow path" – and that he can't "rule out" further measures across the rest of the UK.
However, he is still resisting pressure for a full nationwide 'circuit-breaker' lockdown – and one of his top academics said it wouldn't be fair.
England's deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said during the Downing Street press conference: "Pretty much everywhere in England is now heating up to some extent.
"We are trying to walk a very fine line between getting the virus under control in areas where it's out of control, and incurring the minimum amount of economic damage in doing so.
"In the areas where it is out of control, hard measures are needed.
"But do I think right now it is appropriate to insist on similar hard measures in, for example, south-west England or Kent, where levels of disease are really very, very much lower than in the North of England?”
What did Boris say in his last speech?
The Prime Minister last held a Downing Street press conference yesterday afternoon (October 20).
Mr Johnson announced that Greater Manchester will be moved to Tier 3 measures from just after midnight on Thursday (October 22).
Pubs and bars will be closed, unless serving substantial meals, for a 28-day period, along with betting shops, casinos, bingo halls, adult gaming centres and soft play areas.
The PM also announced that Greater Manchester will receive £22 million in extra funding.
He said that Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burham didn't accept the offer and he must proceed to moving the area to a greater alert level.
It would put many lives at risk if he didn't, he said.
Boris Johnson said: “I bitterly regret any restrictions that lead to damage to business and people’s lives.”
“Nobody wants to put people in Greater Manchester through the experience they have been.
“Andy Burnham is right in what he says about the length of endurance Greater Manchaster has shown. The £22 million, that is additional to other support.
“This is a Government that has put £190 billion already into supporting business and jobs across the country we are investing huge sums of money to support local authorities and another £1 billion.”
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