Britons should be able to enjoy “a happy and free great British summer” if the vaccine rollout is successful, Matt Hancock has said.

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.”