Health Secretary Sajid Javid will make a Commons statement on the latest developments in the Covid-19 crisis at 11am on Friday, the House authorities have said.

It comes after Mr Javid said the new variant identified in South Africa “may be more transmissible” than the Delta strain and added “the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective”.

Downing Street said a coronavirus variant identified in cases in South Africa and Botswana would be kept under “close investigation”.

A Number 10 spokesman said: “We continue to monitor new variants as they emerge with our partners around the world.

“We have one of the largest genomic sequencing programmes here in the UK that allows us to spot and track variants as they emerge and, as we have done throughout the pandemic, we will continue to keep an eye and keep this particular variant under investigation.”

Asked whether travel restrictions would be needed before Christmas as a result of the variant, the spokesman said: “We will continue to keep the latest situation, the latest scientific evidence and data, under review, as we have done throughout the pandemic.

“We have said before if we believe we need to take action we will, but we will continue to monitor this variant and other variants in the same way that we have done throughout the pandemic.”