Labour leader Keir Starmer has called for the government to close schools in England and issue “strong” advice for people to stay at home.
The call comes as Boris Johnson was set to make a televised address to the nation from Downing Street at 8pm on Monday.
It is expected the prime minister will issue tougher national restrictions, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to surge in the wake of the new and more transmissible strain of the virus taking hold.
Parliament will be recalled on Wednesday so MPs can vote.
Starmer called for a national lockdown to be imposed within 24 hours on Sunday, and has now said the closure of schools is “inevitable”.
Nicola Sturgeon said on Monday that schools will remain closed in Scotland until February 1 at the earliest.
Starmer said in an interview with the BBC: “The virus is out of control. We need to get it back under control.
“The more we delay, the worse it will get. The longer we delay the longer schools will be closed for. So, that’s not in anyone’s interest.”
He said closures “should be in place today but certainly as soon as possible”.
He went on: “I’m afraid the closure of schools is now inevitable and therefore that needs to be part of that plan, the national plan for further restrictions.
“That means that we need to have measures in place to protect working parents, measures in place to enable children to learn at home and a plan to get schools safely reopened again, and that goes back to vaccination.”
The Labour leader said hospitals were “near breaking point” and that a lockdown would “create space for the rollout of the vaccine, which is mission critical”.
He said Johnson’s statement should return the UK to a full lockdown “in the spirit of March” with Brits urged to stay at home to protect the NHS.
Starmer said the government should strike a “contract” with the public, with the vaccine rolled out at a pace of two million people a week in January, with that number to be doubled next month.
“We are the first country to get the vaccine and we need to be the first country to complete the vaccination programme,” Starmer said. “That should be the basic deal.”
A No.10 spokesperson said: “The prime minister is clear that further steps must now be taken to arrest this rise and to protect the NHS and save lives. He will set those out this evening.”