The new Covid tier system leaves Boris Johnson facing yet more bruising encounters with Tory MPs

The end of the lockdown in England on 2 December was never going to be a cause for much celebration. Boris Johnson had already warned that returning to a three-tier system of coronavirus-related restrictions would bring in a tougher regime than existed before the four-week national shutdown.

Ministers had come under intense lobbying from MPs, council leaders and mayors to put their areas in the lowest tier possible to protect businesses. But the government has rewritten the old saying that “you can’t please all of the people all of the time”; when it comes to Covid-19, it really cannot please anyone.

Inevitably, there was an outbreak of nimbyism when Matt Hancock, the health secretary, made a Commons statement on the new map, which will see only 1 per cent of England in the lowest tier 1 – a huge drop from the pre-lockdown figure of more than half. Some 57 per cent of England’s population will be in tier 2 and 42 per cent in tier 3. Only Liverpool moved down a level, from tier 3 to tier 2, where London will remain for now.

MPs queued up to complain that their own patch had been put in a higher category than necessary. In some cases they grumbled that areas with low infection rates had been unfairly lumped together with places with higher figures. One headache for ministers is that today’s MPs are more independent-minded than ever and desperate to be seen as standing up for their constituencies.

But the MPs are not merely playing to the gallery: many Tories will likely vote against the new system in the Commons next Tuesday. In the hope of limiting the rebellion, the vote will be on the regime rather than the restrictions in each area. 

In a concession to the rebels, an “impact assessment” will be published before the vote. But many Tories will still refuse to support the government – some on libertarian grounds, some because they claim ministers have not produced enough evidence for the curbs. There is a “halt tier 3” campaign on the Tory benches, with the top category seen as prolonging the current lockdown, even though hairdressers, gyms and leisure centres will be able to reopen.

Sir Graham Brady, who chairs the 1922 committee of Tory MPs, will vote against what he called heavy-handed and far too authoritarian rules, warning they would force the closure of more hospitality businesses. Steve Baker, vice chair of the 70-strong Tory Covid Recovery Group, tweeted: “The authoritarianism at work today is truly appalling. But is it necessary and proportionate to the threat from this disease? The government must publish its analysis.”

Some Tory rebels had hoped to make common cause with the Labour opposition, after Keir Starmer declined to support the new system when Johnson announced it on Monday. But Labour usually supports tougher restrictions and so it will likely back the measures, cancelling out the Tory revolt and lifting the prospect of a humiliating government defeat.

The disenchanted Tories are also moaning about a suggestion by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) fiscal watchdog that the ban on households mixing could last until the middle of next year. It said a vaccine would not be widely available until the “latter half of the year”, dashing Johnson’s hopes of a return to normality by Easter. 

In fact, the OBR report accompanying Wednesday’s government spending review was written before the Oxford University/AstraZeneca breakthrough. The OBR insists there is still a lot of uncertainty about the effectiveness and availability of vaccines, but will likely upgrade its central forecast to be more optimistic.

Hancock insisted the new regime does amount to the “exit strategy” Tory MPs crave. He was right to argue that “tempting as it may be, we cannot simply flick a switch and try to return life straight back to normal”. The health secretary insisted the evidence and advice presented to the government “shows that we must make the tiers tougher than they were before to protect the NHS through the winter and avert another national lockdown”. But the short-term outlook is so uncertain that he could not guarantee there would not be a third lockdown.

Johnson reportedly told an uneasy meeting with Tory MPs on Zoom the OBR is being “too gloomy” but admitted the new tiered system would be “tough”. He is desperate to promise the restrictions will definitely end in the spring but knows that a long winter lies ahead first. 

So too do more bruising battles with his fractious MPs, just when Johnson is hoping for an outbreak of peace and goodwill.