BORIS JOHNSON will hold a No 10 press conference at 5pm this evening.

The Prime Minister will be joined by chief medical officer for England, Professor Chris Whitty, and the Government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, Downing Street has said.

This comes a day after the Prime Minister announced that England will go into a national lockdown, closing schools and colleges in Lancashire.

In his statement on Monday evening, which was broadcast at 8pm, Mr Johnson announced stringent new lockdown measures for England.

Mr Johnson warned that the coming weeks will be the “hardest yet” but said that “with a fair wind in our sails” it should be possible to vaccinate 13 million of the most vulnerable people by mid-February, paving the way for controls to be eased.

A spokeswoman for BBC confirmed an average of 14.1 million people watched on BBC One on Monday evening, while an additional 1.5 million tuned in on the BBC News channel.

An additional average audience of 5.4 million tuned in on ITV, while nearly two million watched on Channel 4, according to the broadcasters.

His statement was also broadcast on Sky.

The BBC overnight viewing figures are slightly down on those for Boris Johnson’s first lockdown announcement in March last year, when 15.4 million watched his address on BBC One and a further 2.5 million viewed the statement on the BBC News channel.

Overnight viewing figures for his statement are more than twice as high as those for the Queen’s Christmas Day message (6.3 million).

Viewing figures have also been requested from Sky.