UK coronavirus live: Gove to discuss Christmas with devolved nations as Sturgeon considers tighter rules

Latest updates: health experts and opposition call for mixing rules to be cancelled; all English secondary schools to get rapid tests from January

• UK medical journals call for Christmas Covid rules to be reversed
• Greenwich backs down over schools closures after legal threat
• Do minimum possible' at Christmas, says minister
• Coronavirus - latest global updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

3.06pm GMT

Here is a summary of the main points in Nicola Sturgeon's statement to MSPs about coronavirus.

2.42pm GMT

In Edinburgh Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, has just told MSPs that her government is considering whether any additional precautions are necessary" over Christmas in the light of what has emerged about the new variant of the coronavirus, which may be causing the virus to spread more quickly.

She said she would be discussing this with the other four nation governments in a call this afternoon which she said she requested yesterday.