The Prime Minister’s plan for a ‘significant return to normality by Christmas’ has come across a bit wishy-washy to some.

Today Boris Johnson announced a road map for the months ahead, including a £3billion fund to get the NHS ’battle ready’ for a possible second wave. He’s also set to ditch blanket advice to avoid public transport and work from home.

He also vowed to set out an ‘aspirational timetable to lift social distancing measures, despite England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty warning just a few hours later that such rules might be needed for quite some time.

The PM also said that employers will be able to decide when their staff should come back to work from next month, despite the Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance saying he sees ‘no reason’ to change the policy of working from home if possible.

While Johnson advised firms to talk to their staff ‘in a serious and grown-up way’ and to carry out risk assessments, trade union leaders feel left in the dark and have accused the Prime Minister of ‘passing the buck’ to employers who they say need far more guidance.

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As the PM faces demands for more substance, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘We all want society to reopen, we all want our economy to start growing again. So we’ll look at the details of this plan.

‘But the key now is confidence. Do the public have confidence in the measures the government have put in place? Do businesses have confidence in the advice that’s been given?

‘And can we have confidence that the government’s scientific advisers support these measures? This can’t be done on a wing and a prayer. It requires a credible plan, and national leadership.’

The TUC union’s general secretary Frances O’Grady said there is a lot for employers to do before they can reopen the workplace, including risk assessments and consultations with unions.

He added: ‘We all want to get the economy up and running as quickly as possible. Returns to workplaces must happen in a phased and safe way. ‘The Government is passing the buck on this big decision to employers.’

When asked at today’s Downing Street conference why Sir Patrick and Professor Whitty hadn’t joined him, he denied it had anything to do with the fact their answers might clash with his optimisitc political ambitions.

Suggesting he had overruled their advice, he said: ‘The chief scientific adviser and the chief medical officer, give us advice, which we of course take very very seriously.

‘But in the end decisions are taken by the elected politicians and we have to weigh the advice that we get.

‘I don’t think our wonderful scientific and medical advisers would want to take those decisions for us, those are decisions for us to take.’

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