"A happy and free great British summer....."

The health secretary warned that there would be a “tough few months” between now and the summer and said people should expect to remain under social distancing restrictions for some time.

He told BBC Politics East, however: “In six months we’ll be in the middle, I hope, of a happy and free great British summer.

“I have a high degree of confidence that by then the vast majority of adults will have been vaccinated – and that’s not just the clinically vulnerable groups, but all groups.”