The government’s plan to move out of lockdown will be “cautious but irreversible”, Boris Johnson has said.
The prime minister is due to set out the roadmap for ending restrictions next Monday.
He told reporters the plan would include target dates for changes “if we possibly can”, but he warned high rates of infection could lead to delays.
It comes as a group of Tory MPs call for a commitment to a “free life” and ending of lockdown measures before May.
Senior backbencher Steve Baker said he wants the prime minister to “let us reclaim our lives, once and for all”.
On Sunday, the government said it met its target to offer a vaccine to the 15 million most vulnerable people across the UK.
Mr Johnson and senior members of his cabinet are set to spend the week looking into the latest coronavirus statistics before making an announcement on its plans.
He said: “The dates that we’ll be setting out will be the dates by which we hope we can do something at the earliest.”
There has been a raft of speculation on the date of re-openings of businesses and hospitality – much of which has been dismissed by Downing Street.
But sources in No 10 told the BBC they were increasingly confident pupils in England would return to school on 8 March – the earliest the PM said the move could happen.
‘Keep looking at the data’
Mr Johnson said no decisions had been taken yet, but the March date for schools had “for a long time been a priority of the government and families up and down the country”.
He added: “We will do everything we can to make that happen, but we have got to keep looking at the data.
“There are still 23,000 or so Covid patients in the NHS – more than at the April peak last year – there are still sadly too many people dying of this disease; and rates of infection, although they are coming down, are still comparatively high.
“So we have got to be very prudent and what we want to see is progress that is cautious but irreversible. I think that is what the public, people up and down the country, want to see.”
But speaking after the prime minister, the Welsh health minister said he would not want to give a “cast iron guarantee” that lockdown measures wouldn’t be reimposed in future after being lifted in Wales.
Vaughan Gething said there was a “danger” of setting out “absolutes” by talking about whether lockdown lifting was “irreversible”.
