British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will hold a press conference later on how the country will move into the next phase of reopening from the Covid-19 lockdown, said junior minister Nadine Dorries.

"It does look as if the roadmap is on course," Dorries told Sky News. "The prime minister will be making an announcement later this afternoon and he will be detailing how we're going to unlock and when."

Dorries, the minister for mental health, said the government needed to be careful that society did not reopen too quickly however because variants of the coronavirus have been circulating.