THERE is "no alternative" but to introduce a national lockdown to curb rising levels of coronavirus, the Prime Minister has said.

Boris Johnson has told MPs this afternoon that there could be twice as many Covid deaths over the course of the winter than there was during the first wave if further measures were not introduced.

He also said that he makes "no apology" for delaying national restrictions in favour of trying to control the pandemic using local lockdowns.

And Mr Johnson also asked members to "back" the beleaguered Test and Trace system, saying more people need to self-isolate when asked to do so.

He told MPs in the House of Commons this afternoon: “Let me spell out the medical and moral disaster we face. If we allow our health system to be overwhelmed, exactly as the data now suggests, then that would not only be a disaster for thousands of Covid patients, because their survival rates would fall, we would also reach a point where the NHS was no longer there for everyone.

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“The sick would be turned away because there was no room in our hospitals. That sacred principle of care for anyone who needs it, whoever they are and wherever, whenever they need it, could be broken for the first time in our lives.

“Doctors and nurses could be forced to choose which patients to treat, who would live and who would die. And this existential threat to our NHS comes not from focusing too much on coronavirus, but from not focusing enough.

“If we fail to get coronavirus under control, it is the sheer weight of demand from Covid patients that would deprive others of the care they need. Cancer treatment, heart surgery, other life-saving procedures, all this could be put at risk if we do not get the virus under control.

“Faced with these latest figures, there is no alternative but to take further action at a national level.

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“I believe it was right to try every possible option to get this virus under control at a local level with strong local action and strong local leadership.

“And I reject any suggestion that we are somehow slower in taking measures than our European friends and partners.

“In fact we’re moving to national measures when the rate both of death and infections for instance is lower than they were in France.”

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Mr Johnson told MPs that the lockdown, which will come into force from Thursday should it be backed by the House on Wednesday, will end on December 2, and restrictions will return to a tiered system.

But whilst Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said that his party would back the lockdown, he said that the Prime Minister and Chancellor had “failed to learn” lessons from the first wave of the pandemic.

He told the Commons: “The central lesson from the first wave of this virus was that if you don’t act early and decisively the cost will be far worse, more people will lose their jobs, more businesses will be forced to close and tragically more people will lose their loved ones.

“The Prime Minister and the Chancellor failed to learn this lesson. As a result, this lockdown will be longer than it needed to be, at least four weeks, it will be harder – we’ve just missed half-term – and the human cost will be higher.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey also said that his party "will hold this government to account for failing to listen to the advice of scientists".