Here is a joint statement from two Conservative MPs with North Somerset constituencies: Liam Fox, the former international trade secretary and John Penrose, a former minister. North Somerset is in tier 3.

They say this decision “isn’t right or fair” and they call for it to be reversed after a fortnight.

The mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, has expressed disappointment over the city being put into tier 3. He told the Guardian he had hoped that a recent fall in the Covid numbers might have “earned” the city a place in tier 2.

The city council estimated the month-long lockdown will have cost the city around £54m. The tier status will add to the burden.

Rees said the impact on the hospitality and night-time economy - 23,000 jobs - was particularly worrying. He said:

As well as trying to take on the virus, my thoughts go to how we are going to support businesses and jobs.

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has announced the latest weekly changes to the travel corridor system.

A group of small countries are being added to the travel corridor list - meaning anyone arriving in the UK from these places will no longer have to quarantine for 14 days.

The total ban on travel to Denmark has been lifted, although quarantine rules still apply.

And Estonia and Latvia are off the travel corridors list - which means people arriving in the UK from these countries will be subject to quarantine.

Q: Do you accept that in Liverpool some people are not getting tested because 80% of people do not qualify for support if they have to self-isolate? And Liverpool has had a poor relationship with the Tories. Will you reward their sacrifice?

Johnson says Liverpool has been fantastic. He says the government will continue to support it as part of its levelling up agenda.

And that’s it. The press conference is over.

Whitty says the “extraordinary altruism” of the British public has been one of the best things about this crisis. He says people are sticking to the rules to protect other people. And he says there is no evidence that that spirit is going away. There are examples of people ignoring the rules, but the majority of people are complying.

Vallance says the vaccines are “looking really good”. But they have yet to go through the regulator, and there will be time between doses; most require two doses. So they are not going to provide protection soon, he says.

He says it would be wrong to assume that, because of vaccines and mass testing, we can relax now.

Q: Is it fair that areas in tier 3 that close get support for firms that close, but not for firms that are dependent on them?

Johnson says, if that is a question about supply chains, they deserve protection as well. He says the furlough scheme will run until March, and he says the government has support schemes for businesses.

The best option is to get the virus down so firms can reopen, he says.

Q: How will you deliver mass testing to 40% of the population?

Johnson says strong local leadership will be required, plus “real spirit” in the community. And mass testing is only part of the answer. People have to follow the guidance too.

He says the government will not be imposing this. Local leaders will have to want to do this.

Where there is local will, as there is in Doncaster and Barnsley and places like that, there we are working hard to get it done.

He says the government will ensure adequate numbers of personnel are available.

Q: Do these tiering decisions anticipate a rise in cases caused by Christmas?

Whitty says Christmas will increase the risk. Everyone knows that, he says. But it is not the only problem. He says January and February are always the busiest times of the year for the NHS.

People need to take it seriously and consider the risks, he says.

Q: Aren’t you going to have to raise taxes?

Johnson says the chancellor set out his case yesterday. He says he is very, very confident about the path the economy is on.

There will have to be “fiscal prudence”, but you will get that from the government, he says.

Q: Why did “whack-a-mole” not work?

Johnson says the tiered approach has been working.

He repeats the point about the Liverpool mass testing approach offering a way forward.

Whitty says you have to remember the seasonality of this. In the summer it was possible to hold cases down. Now, as we go into winter, cases are going up. That is common for respiratory illnesses, he says.

He says there are tiers that would work in the summer that would not work now.

He says, bit by bit, he hope parts of the country will be able to walk out of this, down from tiers. That could happen over the next few weeks or months.

Q: Are you confident that enough places are in tier 3?

Whitty says throughout this the government has had to do the least damaging thing. There are no ideal options.

He says there will be adjustments - hopefully downwards.

Q: Are you confident about the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine? (See 4.29am.)

Whitty says the key thing is to leave this to the regulator. They are excellent. They have access to data not in the public domain.

Vallance agrees. He says the headline results are excellent, but the regulator, which is excellent, must decide.

Q: What was the point of the lockdown if more people are moving into tougher tiers?

Johnson says the lockdown is not continuing. Shops and places like hairdressers will be open. This will be a very different thing.

He says he is convinced that in a few months we will have the vaccine, and that by April things will be very much better.

But it is important not to “take our foot off the throat of the beast” now, he says.

There is a “substantial relaxation across all tiers”, he says.

He also says people should take heart from the possibilities offered by mass testing.

Q: Will the vaccines work when the Covid virus mutates?

Vallance says we will end up with lots of vaccine options. Viruses do mutate. But this one does not mutate as much as the flu virus. This virus mutates, but it has not done so so far in such a way as to make the vaccine ineffective.

But in future that could happen, he says.

He says he does not think the vaccines we have at the moment will necessarily be the ones we use for ever.

Whitty says sometimes you need new vaccines because of mutations. But other vaccines you need to top anyway, because immunity wanes.

Q: Will the government consider moving to remote learning for schools?

Johnson says he wants to keep schools open. He favours remote learning in some circumstances. But he says he wants children in schools and he wants exams to go ahead.

Whitty now presents a slide showing the tier allocations.

He says tier 1 won’t hold the virus down. It only applies where cases are very low.

Tier 2 should be able to hold cases level, he says. And tier 3 should be able to get them down.

The next two slides from Vallance cover hospital cases and deaths.

Vallance is presenting the slides now.

The first one covers cases. On cases, we seem to have turned the corner, he says.

Johnson says at least one in three people with Covid don’t have symptoms. They may be spreading it unwittingly.

That is why mass testing is so important, he says.

Johnson says he wishes he did not have to introduce these measures.

But they are essential if the government is going to keep schools open, he says.

He says these measures will be less intrusive than the lockdown.

In all tiers shops, gyms, the leisure sector, hairdressers other forms of personal care and places of worship will reopen. You’re no longer be instructed to stay at home, though you should continue to work from home if you can.

Johnson starts by saying we have “reason to hope” that by spring vaccines and mass testing will bring an end to the need for restrictions.

But we face a hard winter, because winter favours the virus, he says.

He says it is vital not to let the virus take off again.

All around the world countries are taking different measures to keep the virus under control, he says.

And he summarises the government’s approach for England.

Data packs will be publishing explaining why particular areas are going in particular tiers.

Paul Foster, the Labour leader of South Ribble council in Lancashire, has issued a statement saying he is “bitterly disappointed” the whole of the county has gone into tier 3. And he has accused Matt Hancock, the health secretary, of falsely claiming to have engaged with local leaders. Foster said:

To hear the health secretary tell the House of Commons that he has engaged with local leaders is simply not true. If the health secretary wants to engage with me, then by all means give me a ring or send me an email, but don’t misrepresent what is actually happening, or in this case, not happening.

If the health secretary had taken the time to speak with me and other local leaders across Lancashire, we would have told him we support a targeted approach within Lancashire – allocating tier 2 to areas where the rate of infection was lower, but putting tier 3 restrictions in place where the rates were higher.

The Covid Recovery Group, which represents anti-lockdown or lockdown-sceptic Tories, has released some more quotes from Conservative MPs unhappy about the new restrictions.

This is from Harriet Baldwin, a former minister and MP for West Worcestershire

I voted for the current lockdown on the basis that it would give us a 28 day period to develop a new and enduring strategy for living with the virus that doesn’t require us to keep having to live under cycles of damaging lockdowns and severe restrictions, and to reform NHS test and trace so that only the infectious individuals and their close contacts have to isolate.

Over 23m of us were living under tier 1 restrictions before the lockdown - that figure will be under 1m in December. There is no logic whatsoever in having a month of lockdown only for people to have to live under an even more severe set of restrictions afterwards.

That’s why we must see the evidence, the data and the cost benefit analysis - published in full and on time - so that we can assess whether or not the current strategy is working, and make sure we know if we are being asked to vote for something with an end date and which will explicitly save more lives than it costs.

From Tom Tugendhat, MP for Tonbridge and Malling in Kent

We went into lockdown at tier 1 and came out at tier 3. This isn’t working for us.

From Greg Smith, MP for Buckingham

I reluctantly supported the second lockdown on the basis of NHS capacity. Today, my local NHS, who have performed exceptionally during this pandemic, are not overwhelmed - yet Buckinghamshire has been placed in tier 2, having gone into lockdown in tier 1.

Businesses are struggling, the hospitality sector without a proper December will be on its knees and I worry about the continuing impact on other health conditions and people’s mental health.

We need local decision making, not Whitehall instructions, to give as many people as possible their freedom back, whilst containing this virus in the places where the spread is genuinely very high.

Northern Ireland has recorded 442 further coronavirus cases. This is down from 533 yesterday and 487 a week ago today.

And there have been eight further deaths, up from seven yesterday but down from 12 a week ago today.

The BBC has a good graphic here showing what the three-tier map of England looked like before lockdown, and what it looks like now.

Nadhim Zahawi, a business minister and MP for Stratford upon Avon, says he is “hugely disappointed” that Warwickshire is in tier 3.

This is how Matt Hancock defended the decision to place Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull in tier 3 in his written ministerial statement.

The case rate remains very high (though falling) across this area at 236/100,000. The case rate in over 60s remains very high at 182/100,000. There is a clear upward trend in case rates in over 60s in 3 of the 7 local authority areas. Positivity is 9.0%. The pressure on the local NHS remains high.

AstraZeneca is saying that it is likely to conduct a further global trial of its coronavirus vaccine because of questions that have been raised about the first one, Bloomberg reports.

It is not clear from the Bloomberg report as to what impact, if any, this development might have on the potential UK rollout of the vaccine.

Tim Loughton, the Conservative former children’s minister, says he is “very disappointed” that Adur and Worthing in West Sussex have been placed in tier 2. He says that he will vote against the regulations next week unless ministers can show him evidence to justify the decision.

The most detailed explanation we’ve had from the government as to why Sussex is in tier 2 is in the written statement from Matt Hancock (which has now been cleaned up to remove all the question marks - see 11.59am). This is what it says about Sussex.

Case rates in Sussex are at 120 per 100,000 with a total positivity of 4.5%. However, the trend is increasing in several areas. NHS admissions have been fairly stable in the last month but there is increasing occupancy in units treating more serious cases.

The UK government has updated its coronavirus dashboard. Here are the key statistics.

• The UK has recorded 498 further coronavirus deaths. That is almost 200 below the total for yesterday (696), but it is still above the average for the past seven days (465). The death rate over the past week is 14% higher than for the previous week.

• The UK has recorded 17,555 more coronavirus cases. That is down from the total for yesterday (18,213), but slightly above the average for the past seven days (17,329). Week on week, positive cases are down 26%.

Public Health Wales has recorded 1,251 more coronavirus cases. That is a big increase on the totals for yesterday (907), for a week ago today (1,048) or two weeks ago today (867).

And there have been 28 further deaths, down from 41 yesterday but up from 23 a week ago today.

Gavin Barwell, the former Conservative MP who served as Theresa May’s chief of staff when she was prime minister after losing his seat in the 2017 general election, has welcomed the appointment of Dan Rosenfield to do his old job. (See 2.10pm.)

Here is a statement from Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director for Public Health England, on the figures in today’s weekly PHE Covid surveillance report. (See 3.08pm.)

Richard Drax, the Conservative MP for South Dorset, has said he is “astounded” that his constituency is in tier 2. In a statement released by the anti-lockdown Covid Recovery Group, Drax said:

With only 80 cases for every 100,000 people in South Dorset, I’m astounded that we’ve been put into tier 2. We were at tier 1 before, so how can we possibly need even more severe restrictions than before the lockdown?

Only yesterday the chancellor made clear the utter devastation these lockdowns are having on our economy and all aspects of it, including health. The solution? Carry on destroying lives and livelihoods! We need a new strategy based on common sense, not fear and more fear!

NHS England has recorded 351 further coronavirus hospital deaths. There were 82 in the north-east and Yorkshire, 81 in the north-west, 78 in the Midlands, 41 in the south-east, 28 in London, 23 in the south-west and 18 in the east of England. The details are here.

That is broadly in line with the totals for yesterday (353) and a week ago today (346), and up on the total for two weeks ago today (317).

Almost 99% of the English population will be under the higher tier 2 and tier 3 lockdown levels when they come into effect.

Three local authorities – Isle of Wight, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly – which have a combined population of 713,573 and make up just 1.3% of the entire English population, will come under the least severe “medium level” restrictions.

A further 57% of the population – including all of London as well as other areas including Oxfordshire, Surrey, West Sussex, Devon, Gloucestershire and Somerset – will face “high level” tier 2 restrictions.

Two in five people (41.5% of the population of England) will come under tier 3, including those living in areas such as Greater Manchester and Lancashire.

Reaction from across the south-west of England to the tiering allocations have been mixed. There is optimism in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, which are in tier 1, but frustration in Bristol – and its neighbours South Gloucestershire and North Somerset – which are tier 3.

Bristol city council reckons being in tier 3 will cost it £2.8m a month to support businesses and vulnerable people.

Devon has been put into tier 2, just hours after it emerged that the Nightingale hospital in Exeter will receive patients for the first time.

But Anne Marie Morris, Tory MP for Newton Abbot, has pointed out that Teignbridge in south Devon has one of the lowest Covid rates in England. She tweeted:

And Conor Burns, the Conservative MP for Bournemouth West, has also criticised the Bournemouth decision.

The Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood represents Bournemouth East, which is in tier 2. He says he will not be backing the government in the vote on the new measures.

From Damian Green, the Conservative MP for Ashford in Kent

From the Times’ Chris Smyth

Tax increases and spending cuts totalling £40bn will be needed to balance the books, as a combination of weak growth and pressure on the NHS and welfare budgets leads to worse than expected public finances in the coming years, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said. My colleague Larry Elliott has the story here.

Stephen Brady, the leader of Hull city council, has defended the decision to put his city in tier 3. Earlier this month it had the highest coronavirus rate in England, at 785 cases per 100,000, but that has now fallen to 530 cases per 100,000.

Brady said:

Tier 3 is not where anyone wants to be but, with our infection rates still very high, it is what we expected and it’s the right place for Hull to be at this time.

This is from Sacha Lord, Greater Manchester’s night-time economy adviser.

“Lockdown must not become limbo,” says Dan Jarvis, the Labour mayor for the Sheffield city region. He says he wants the region to come out of tier 3 “as a matter of urgency”.

I welcome government plans to review our tier arrangements every two weeks, because every extra day we are under restrictions could be the difference between a business surviving the pandemic or going under. It is now essential we get a roadmap to get us out of tier 3 as a matter of urgency.

Boris Johnson will be joined by Prof Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, at his No 10 press conference this afternoon.

This is useful – a map showing which parts of England are in which tiers.

In a joint statement on Leicester being placed in tier 3, the three local Labour MPs, Liz Kendall, Jonathan Ashworth and Claudia Webbe, issued a joint statement saying:

This has already been an unbelievably tough year, and the news that Leicester will go into tier 3 – on top of the 150 days of our extra lockdown – is extremely difficult to hear.

The government must now spell out how we can get out of tier 3, and the measures they will use to review Leicester’s position, to give people hope their sacrifices will make a difference.

Schools who used reserves to pay for mounting pandemic costs while poorer performing ones have been bailed out will have to “just lump it,” parliament’s public accounts committee has heard.

Cases of schools who have racked up large extra bills were raised with the Department for Education’s most senior civil servant by Tory MP Richard Holden, who said one of his local schools would spend an extra £100 per pupil on cleaning this year.

Some schools who had dipped into their reserves and felt they were being punished while others were being bailed out wanted to know if they would be reimbursed.

He was told by Susan Acland-Hood, the DfE’s permanent secretary, that she completely understood the feelings of head teachers who had managed schools well and built up reserves. But she added:

I think it’s very hard for us to argue to the Treasury the contrary case, which is that schools which have significant reserves should be given extra money.

So the result is they are just going to to have to lump it on that one.

Meanwhile, the average size of bubbles of children and others who had to come home and self isolate after a case of covid-19 had started to come down “quite significantly” since the start of September after collaboration between the DfE and the Department of Health, said Acland-Hood.

The first port of call for schools should be the DfE helpline, she added, and it would be rare for advice to be given for entire year groups to be sent home. Rather, it would be more a case of examining who the particular pupil or member of staff had been in contact with.

Patrick Harley, the Conservative leader of Dudley council, said he was “disappointed” that his town was in tier 3 because “the decision does not reflect the substantial reduction in our Covid-19 cases we have seen in recent days”. He said he hoped the decision would be reviewed in a fortnight.

Susan Hinchcliffe, leader of Bradford council in West Yorkshire, which is in tier 3, has joined Andy Burnham in calling for more support for businesses. She said:

Our infection rates are going down so I welcome the opportunity of a regular review of these arrangements so that we can exit as soon as possible.

The restrictions must come with more government funding to support the many local businesses and their supply chains which have been battling on in restrictions for months now. The risk is, even with furlough, that many businesses will simply fold and cut their losses.

These are from Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP for Canterbury in Kent, which is in tier 3.

The Labour MP Andrew Gwynne, who represents Denton and Reddish in Greater Manchester, says he is “minded” to vote against the new measures because he is opposed to the the “arbitrary singling out of the hospitality sector, which all the data shows is responsible for around just 3% of transmissions”. In a statement he said:

I will never understand the logic of a tiering system that says it’s okay for many thousands to cram into a busy shopping centre in the run-up to Christmas, but small numbers from the same household are unable to sit responsibly at a table for a meal and a drink in a bar or restaurant. This will be a heavy blow for the hospitality businesses across Denton and Reddish who have invested heavily in Covid-secure measures to allow them to reopen safely.

Earlier in the Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the house, said the vote on the new regulations would take place on Tuesday.

The Labour party has not yet said how it will vote, although on Monday Sir Keir Starmer said that a return to a three-tier system was “risky”, suggesting that the party could abstain. Voting against would run the risk of England being left without any Covid restrictions in place at all, which is not an outcome Labour favours because generally it has been arguing for a tougher regime than the one imposed by No 10. Dozens of Tory MPs are likely to vote against but, without the opposition voting against, there would be almost no risk of the government losing.

Gerald Vernon-Jackson, the Lib Dem leader of Portsmouth city council, said that moving his city into tier 2 was “sensible”, but that he hoped it could move down to tier 1 in a fortnight. He said:

It will be very difficult for the hospital industry but we did fear for a while we would go into tier 3.

When we had the free-for-all in the early autumn, our infection rate shot up in young people and that fed up to older people with our infection rates 10 times what they were in the summer so this seems to be the sensible decision to control our infection rates.

In the Commons Julian Sturdy (Con) asks for the tiers to be reviewed every week, not every fortnight.

Hancock says he will agree to that. He says he has spoken about the tiers being reviewed regularly, because the data could be reviewed more often than once a week.

(But under the government’s regulations, as Hancock confirms in his written ministerial statement today, the rules only have to be reviewed every fortnight.)

This is from Philip Whitehead, the leader of Wiltshire council, on the news that Wiltshire is in tier 2.

It is disappointing, but not surprising, that we find ourselves in a higher tier than before. We have been planning for such an eventuality and we want to reassure residents and businesses that we are here to help them get through this.

This is from the Conservative MP Steve Baker, deputy chair of the Covid Recovery Group, which represents anti-lockdown Tories.

My colleague Josh Halliday calculates that 98.7% of England is in the top two tiers. Only Cornwall, Isle of Wight and Isles of Scilly are in tier 1. They have a combined population of 713, 573 - 1.3% of England.

Pubs in Liverpool will be able to open for the first time in six weeks next Wednesday after it avoided the strictest coronavirus restrictions. The city, which was the first to enter tier 3 last month, will be in tier 2 when England leaves national lockdown on 2 December.

Liverpool has been hailed – somewhat uncomfortably for local leaders – as a poster child for the government’s coronavirus strategy having reduced its infection rate from 700 cases per 100,000 when it entered tier 3 to around 144 cases on Thursday.

Downing Street’s desperation to avoid any advance leaks of the tiering restrictions led to the shambolic situation of council officials having to frantically use the government’s online postcode checker to find out news, before it crashed under the heavy traffic.

In the Commons Matt Hancock is now responding to Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary. Ashworth asked what the exit strategy was for areas in the highest tiers. Hancock says he already outlined it; complying with the regulations, and using mass testing.

In the Commons Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is now making a statement about the tiers.

He pays particular tribute to Liverpool, saying that it is an example of how a city can move from tier 3 to tier 2.

He says areas in tier 3 will be able to use mass testing. And he urges people to take advantage of mass testing, so that they can get their areas out of tier 3.

There has been a decrease in the number of people testing positive for coronavirus for the first time since the end of August, according to the latest NHS test and trace report (pdf).

The figures, published by the Department for Health and Social Care show that 152,660 people tested positive for coronavirus in the week ending 18 November, a decrease of 9% compared to the previous week. Last week the figures showed an increase of 11%.

Test and trace continues to struggle with reaching contacts, with the numbers contacted being broadly the same as the previous week. Some 156,574 people were transferred to the contact tracing system, and of those transferred, 84.9% were reached. But taking into account all contacts identified, only 60.3% were reached.

There was a slight reduction in the proportion of coronavirus tests being positive, with 8.8% of people tested having a positive result, a reduction from the 9.6% reported the previous week.

From Tony Roe, a BBC correspondent covering the east Midlands

Here is the government’s postcode checker that journalists are using to find out which areas are in which tier. But it has crashed.

According to Sky News, Leeds, Hull, Wolverhampton and Thanet are also all in tier 3.

The ONS report says Covid rates in Northern Ireland appear to have peaked in the middle of October.

• Around one person in 145 in Northern Ireland had coronavirus in the week from 15 to 21 November, the ONS says. That equates to 12,700 people. The figures for the week before were one person in 135, or 13,600 people in total.
  

According to Sky News, Manchester, Newcastle and Birmingham have been placed in tier 3 while Liverpool and London are in tier 2.

The full ONS infection survey is now on the ONS website.

Here is some more detail about what it is saying about the prevalence of coronavirus in England.

• Around one person in 85 in England had coronavirus in the week from 15 to 21 November, the ONS estimates. That would equate to 633,000 people. The previous week the figure was one person in 80, or 664,700 people in total.

• Positivity rates are rising most in the East Midlands, the ONS says. It says:

Over the last week, positivity rates have increased in the east Midlands and have continued to decrease in the north-west, while the west Midlands, east of England, London, south-east and south-west now also appear to be decreasing; the highest positivity rates are seen in Yorkshire and the Humber, the north-west and the north-east.

• Rates are highest amongst secondary school-age children and young adults, the ONS says. It says:

Over the last week, increases in the positivity rate can only be seen in secondary school-age children and positivity rates have decreased in adults aged 35 years and over, whilst it appears that rates among the youngest age group as well as those aged school year 12 to age 24 years and 25 to 34 years are levelling off; rates remain highest among secondary school-age children and young adults.

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, says the capital should be in tier 2 when the government announces its tiering decisions later this morning.

A 20ft Nordmann Fir tree is on its way to Downing Street to take its place outside No 10 – the first time a tree grown in the north of England has been chosen to give traditional festive cheer to the prime minister’s residence.

The York-based tree grower Oliver Combe – winner of the champion Christmas grower of the year and who runs York Christmas Trees in Wiggington with his wife, Kirstie – felled the tree on Tuesday.

The annual British Christmas Tree Growers Association (BCTGA) competition has been running since 1999 and – surprisingly – it is the first time a winner from the north of England has received the overall gong. Combe told the York-based Press newspaper:

We are a small family-run Christmas tree business based on a farm just outside York and to be given the chance to deliver the tree for Downing Street is incredible and a great reward for all the hard work that our team puts in throughout the year.

Boris Johnson said: “We’re delighted that York Christmas Trees will be providing the Downing Street tree this year which I hope will be enjoyed by many.”

From the Sun’s Harry Cole

Joe Anderson, the mayor of Liverpool, told the Today programme this morning that his city, which was in the first region to enter the original tier 3 status, was now ready to go to tier 2. He said:

I think the figures and the data justify Liverpool being at least, at least, in tier 2.

Asked if he would encourage other areas that are put in tier 3 to put up with the restrictions, Anderson said:

Yes, absolutely, because it’s about saving lives.

There’s no question that the action that we’ve taken in Liverpool has saved lives.

That’s what national government and local government should be about. It’s protecting your people and saving lives.