The new Christmas advice says Santa’s grottos will be allowed to open in all tiers if they are in venues that can open. However it is clear that social distancing must be in place. Door-to-door carol singing will also be allowed. But people who are performing or rehearsing have been warned they can do this a professional capacity or as part of a supervised activity for under 18s.
People in all three tiers will be allowed to attend places of worship.
And travel is allowed to other parts of the country between December 23 and 27 to meet with other households in your Christmas bubble.
Depending on where people are in the UK, shopping and visiting Christmas markets will also depend.
There may be different rules for indoor shops and open air shops or Christmas tree markets.
It comes after the Government said a further 215 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Sunday.
This has brought the UK total to 58,245.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 73,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
The Government said that, as of 9am on Sunday, there had been a further 12,155 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.
READ MORE: Christmas scam warning: How to shield against ‘festive fraud’
Mr Raab insisted the restrictions – which will place swathes of England under stringent rules – are necessary to “bear down” on the pandemic and keep the country out of a national lockdown.
But he said tiers would be downgraded in areas where the virus is in retreat, telling Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday: “We are starting with a more restrictive approach than previously with the localised approach.
“But that allows us to ease up when we are confident the virus is going down and stabilised – there’s a review every two weeks.”
Mr Raab said that, with testing, “those two things are the crucial bridge to that light at the end of the tunnel in the spring”.
And in an interview with BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show, he said there was a “risk” of a third spike in case numbers “if we don’t get the balance right”.
Asked whether there would be another national lockdown if people fail to comply with the rules, Mr Raab said: “We’re doing everything we can to avoid that.”
His comments came after Boris Johnson wrote to Conservative MPs offering them another chance to vote on the restrictions early next year, saying the legislation will have a “sunset of February 3”.
In a bid to head off a rebellion, the Prime Minister also said that at the first review of the measures on December 16 he would move areas down a tier where there is “robust evidence” that coronavirus is in sustained decline.
