People should “get back to work” after Plan B rules were eased, the business secretary has said.
Kwasi Kwarteng extolled the benefits of office-based staff interacting directly as he called for a return to “some degree of normality”.
The comments came after the government this week dropped working from home guidance that was reintroduced late last year to try to combat the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
It resulted in city centres that were still recovering from earlier lockdowns again seeing reduced footfall during what is normally a key period for shopping and parties.
The measures were described by some as a “lockdown by stealth”.
Mr Kwarteng’s comments come after banks such as HSBC and Citigroup this week were among those leading the way in calling staff back to their desks in London.
Meanwhile, the UK boss of PwC said the accountancy firm was expecting a faster bounce back than the last time workers were encouraged to return following lockdowns.
The business secretary told LBC radio: “We should get back to work.
“We’ve got to get back to some degree of normality.
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‘We can go back to the normal UK of the last couple of thousand years’
“People working in the office do get benefits from working with colleagues, being able to interact directly with them and I want to get back to a sense that the pandemic is turning from a pandemic into an endemic.
“I think the sooner we get back to the pre-COVID world the better in terms of workplace practices.”
Mr Kwarteng also said he was trying to increase the number of people coming into work in…
Source : skynews
