Health Secretary Matt Hancock will host a Downing Street press conference later on today, Number 10 has announced.

It will take place at 5pm this afternoon.

It comes after Health minister Edward Argar said there had been 147 confirmed cases of the South African coronavirus variant in the UK but acknowledged his figures may be “a day or so out”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The latest figures I have, which may be a day or so out, is 147 cases in this country.

“So it’s still very much not the dominant strain here, the dominant strain here is very much the historic one, the one we’ve been dealing with since last year, and to a large degree the so-called Kent variant.”