U.K Ministers are set to shelve plans for the mandatory use of ‘Covid certification’ after Freedom Day on July 19. Plans for bars and restaurants had already been put on the backburner following a backlash from MPs and the hospitality sector. Reports have now revealed that ministers have also dropped the idea of imposing them on mass events.

Organisers will, however, be permitted to run their own schemes, with the Premier League among those expected to introduce some form of certification to prove those attending football grounds do not pose a Covid risk.

The move comes amid growing confidence that Boris Johnson will press ahead with plans to lift social distancing rules next month. In what appeared to be a co-ordinated series of interventions, MP Michael Gove said people will have to live with Covid in ‘the way that we live with flu’, which claims thousands of deaths each winter but does not require society and the economy to be locked down.