The government is not planning to fully reopen secondary schools until September “at the earliest”, a senior minister said today.

Speaking at the today’s daily coronavirus briefing, health secretary Matt Hancock said it would take “ingenuity” to reopen schools more widely in a way that didn’t lead to the spread of the virus.

Asked whether he expected schools would be able to reopen fully in September, Mr Hancock said: “That is our current working plan - is that they won’t open, secondary schools won’t open, until September at the earliest.

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“I very much hope that they can because the impact on children’s education is so significant.”

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He added: “But what we have to do, not only in schools but right across the board, is work out how we can get the other things that matter going - like schools, like hospitality, especially outdoor hospitality, like retail - but get them going safely and carefully in a way that doesn’t lead to the spread of the virus. 

“And that is going to require ingenuity. You can already see the ingenuity in lots of areas of the economy - bars that have turned themselves into takeaways; all sorts of different ways that people are providing services and making their business work in a way that is consistent with social distancing and therefore doesn’t have an upward impact on the virus.

“So I think we’ve got to be innovative; we’ve got to be thoughtful about this. And that’s the approach that we try to take in making these very difficult policy judgements, based on the best available science.

“And always guided by that science, with the uncertainty that inherently there is in the science.”