COVID lockdowns only used as last resort, says UK PM's spokesman

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's government will only introduce a new COVID-19 lockdown as a last resort, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday, after the country's health minister signalled he did not expect to see them used again.

"The ability to do that is retained as you would expect, but it would only be done in a last resort and as I said we are in a very different position thanks to the strength of our vaccination programme than where we were when it was necessary to take those steps previously," the spokesman told reporters.

Johnson himself said on Monday that they would do everything to protect the country but "the way things are going at the moment we're very confident in the steps that we've taken".

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan, writing by Elizabeth Piper; editing by Michael Holden)