Sadiq Khan says he is lobbying the Government for London to be placed into Tier 2 restrictions, as it was before the lockdown.

The Prime Minister will announce on Thursday which level of beefed up controls each region in the UK will be subject to after lockdown ends on December 2.

London is expected to be placed into adjusted Tier 2 restrictions, under which household mixing remains banned indoors, however hospitality can remain open until 11pm.

The Mayor of London said: “Thanks to the monumental efforts and sacrifices of Londoners we have managed to keep the number of cases lower in our city than most other parts of the country since the summer.

"London going into tier 2 next week would seem the right and sensible decision.

“The cases in London are lower than other parts of the country expected to enter tier 2.

“I am lobbying the Government for London to be tier 2 and have raised this with Ministers.

"London Government have worked very closely together on a cross-party basis and are united on this.

“London’s unique ecosystem of bars, restaurants, clubs and cultural venues have been through an extremely tough year.

“If they had to close throughout the Christmas period and beyond in tier 3 it would be a hammer blow that many might not recover from.

“Without a substantially more generous package of financial aid from the Government closing much of London’s hospitality sector through December and potentially well into the New Year would cause irreversible damage for many of our businesses and for the whole country's economy.”

News Shopper:

Limited numbers of spectators will also be allowed to attend sports events and live performances under Tier 2, which they were not previously.

The Government will decide which tier each region is placed in after December 2 based on "the number of cases" in each area, but particularly the numbers of people aged over 60 testing positive for the virus, according to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

He told BBC Breakfast that although half the country may be placed in the strictest Tier 3 alert level, this will still allow for more freedoms than the national lockdown currently in place for England.

Mr Shapps said: "I think it is the case that we do need to be a bit tighter on the tiers - Tier 3 in more places is a strong possibility - but there's still a difference between that and what we're doing now.

"For example, in terms of the number of people that can meet outside in a public place, and a number of other things.

"We've been living through this nightmare for a long time now, we all know the only way to defeat this virus is, I'm afraid, to keep people apart and separate from the most natural thing, which is human contact.

"You can only breach that in a certain number of places and I think we've made our decisions as a country that that has to be for things like education and work whilst we get through this winter."