Rishi Sunak has offered a £1 billion support package to businesses hit by Covid restrictions amid concerns over the “eye-wateringly high” transmission of the Omicron variant.

The chancellor has come forward with additional help for the hospitality and leisure sectors in England following days of urgent lobbying from MPs, firms and industry officials.

It includes one-off grants of up to £6,000 per premises for businesses in the affected sectors in England, which the Treasury expects will be administered by local authorities and to be available in the coming weeks.

The government also intends to use taxpayers’ cash to cover the cost of statutory sick pay for Covid-related absences for firms with fewer than 250 employees.

Cultural organisations in England can also access a further £30 million funding during the winter via the culture recovery fund, the Treasury said.

Sunak’s announcement follows crisis talks with business leaders after he cut short a Government business trip to California.

Businesses have seen takings plummet due to Christmas festivities being scaled back amid fear over the spread of Omicron.

It comes as Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the global charitable foundation Wellcome, warned “we’re in the most difficult, most uncertain time, perhaps of the whole pandemic, certainly since March of 2020”.

Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia (UEA), also said the previous rapid increase in cases appears to be slowing and, if that is true, there is no need for a lockdown.

Boris Johnson said of the new funding: “With the surge in Omicron cases, people are rightly exercising more caution as they go about their lives, which is impacting our hospitality, leisure and cultural sectors at what is typically the busiest time of the year.

“That’s why we’re taking immediate action to help with an extra £1 billion in grants to these industries and reintroducing our Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme.

“I urge people across the country to please get boosted now to secure vital protection for yourselves, your loved ones and your communities.”

Sunak added: “We recognise that the spread of the Omicron variant means businesses in the hospitality and leisure sectors are facing huge uncertainty, at a crucial time.

“So we’re stepping in with £1 billion of support, including a new grant scheme, the reintroduction of the Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme and further funding released through the culture recovery fund.”

The extra support builds on existing schemes in place to assist businesses, the Treasury said.

The devolved administrations will receive around £150 million of funding through the Barnett formula as part of the support announced, the department added.

This includes around £80 million for the Scottish Government, £50 million for the Welsh Government and £25 million for the Northern Ireland Executive.

The UK’s travel red list will be scrapped from Wednesday morning, as Sajid Javid announced that all 11 countries remaining will be removed at 4am.

People arriving from Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe had been required to quarantine in a hotel when arriving in the UK, in order to tackle the spread of the Omicron variant.

But speaking in the Commons on Tuesday afternoon, Javid said the spread of the variant in the UK and the world meant the red list was “now less effective in slowing the incursion of Omicron from abroad”.

It came as professor Chris Whitty warned ministers to brace for a “significant increase in hospitalisations” from Omicron, as Downing Street insisted no further coronavirus restrictions are being planned.

England’s chief medical officer also told a virtual cabinet meeting on Tuesday that it is “too early to say how severe” the strain is after early suggestions from South Africa that it could be relatively mild.

Boris Johnson also warned his ministers that he believes a “huge spike” of cases of the variant will hit the nation, as he pressures Tory rebels to back his new Plan B restrictions during a Commons vote.

Downing Street did not reject a suggestion that new Omicron cases could hit a million per day next week based on a “valid” estimate from the UK Health Security Agency that daily infections are currently around 200,000.

Deputy prime minister Dominic Raab insisted Plan B restrictions including mandatory mask=wearing and the use of Covid health certificates for large venues will be sufficient over Christmas, meaning families can “spend it with loved ones”.

But Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon urged people across Scotland to limit their mixing by socialising with only up to two other households indoors either side of Christmas.

And the downbeat assessment from Whitty delivered to the first cabinet meeting not to take place in person for months will raise concerns that additional measures may be needed in England in the new year.

Nicola Sturgeon has said people in Scotland should be encouraged to work from home until at least the middle of January, amid fears about the spread of the Omicron Covid variant.

Speaking on Tuesday, Scotland’s first minister said this was to “avoid the need for even more onerous” restrictions.

Boris Johnson has not yet asked people in England to work from home, but is set to announce whether further restrictions will be needed at some point in the next two weeks.

Downing Street said Omicron appears to be “more transmissible” than Delta.

The UK Health Security Agency said a further 101 confirmed cases of the variant have been reported in the UK on Tuesday. This brings the total number of UK cases to 437.

Sturgeon said: “For the Scottish Government, our first principle will be to seek to do what is necessary to keep the country as safe as possible, even if that is at the expense of being popular,” she said.

“And, second, we will strive to get the right balance between acting proportionately and acting preventatively.

“We know from experience that with an infectious virus acting quickly can be vital – if we wait too long for data to confirm we have a problem, it might already be too late to prevent the problem.

“In fact, acting preventatively is often the best way of ensuring that action can remain limited and proportionate.”

It comes as Professor Tim Spector said early data suggested cases of the coronavirus mutation are doubling every two days, putting it on course to overtake some of the 11 countries from where travellers to the UK are now required to quarantine to try to stymie community transmission.

New rules came into force in the early hours of Tuesday, requiring all travellers to take a pre-departure test before heading to England. They will not be able to travel if they test positive.

Prof Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, told BBC Breakfast there was “very little point” in having travel restrictions if case numbers exceeded those in red list countries.

Health secretary Sajid Javid told MPs on Monday that none of the Omicron variant cases identified to date had resulted in hospital admission.

It is “too late” to effectively halt the spread of the Omicron variant in the UK, a government science adviser has warned.

On Saturday, it was announced all travellers arriving in England will be required to take a Covid pre-departure test from Tuesday – while Nigeria is being added to the government’s travel red list.

Ministers said the extra test was intended to be a temporary measure following new data showing an increase in the number of cases of the new strain linked to foreign travel.

But Professor Mark Woolhouse, who is a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) which advises the government, said the measures would not make a “material difference” as the variant is already “spreading pretty rapidly”.

He told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday: “I think that may be a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

“If Omicron is here in the UK, and it certainly is, if there’s community transmission in the UK, and it certainly looks that way, then it’s that community transmission that will drive a next wave.

“The cases that are being imported are important, we want to detect those and isolate any positive cases we find, as we would for any case anywhere.

“But I think it’s too late to make a material difference to the course of the Omicron wave, if we’re going to have one.”

The travel industry reacted with fury after the latest measures were announced, despite ministers insisting they were only “temporary”.

Dominic Raab told Sky News’s Trevor Phillips On Sunday programme: “I know that is a burden for the travel industry but we have made huge, huge strides in this country.

“We have got to take the measures targeted forensically to stop the new variant seeding in this country to create a bigger problem.

“We have taken a balanced approach but we are always alert to extra risk that takes us back not forward.”

Woolhouse said although the numbers of people with the Omicron variant are “still quite small” and likely remain in the hundreds, they are “growing quite fast”.

However, he insisted that vaccinations will still be “very, very good” at protecting against the new variant.

Statistician David Spiegelhalter told Sky News’s Trevor Phillips On Sunday programme: “It’s a very difficult situation because we haven’t got a lot of data yet at all, almost nothing from this country about what the risks are.

“In South Africa there’s data coming out showing pretty strong evidence that the increased risk of transmission and some evidence about people going to hospital, but it may actually be milder but we haven’t got enough data yet to be able to say.

“It doesn’t look as if it’s really severe if you get it, I think that’s about all we can say at the moment.”

Asked if measures to combat the spread of Omicron have gone far enough, Spiegelhalter added: “It’s best to be precautionary, when there’s so much we don’t know… and when we don’t know it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Sajid Javid has said the new Covid variant “may pose substantial risk to public health”.

Speaking in the Commons on Friday, the health secretary said there were “very live” discussions in government over adding further countries to the red list.

Javid said there were currently no UK cases of the variant, known as B.1.1.529, found in South Africa, Botswana, Hong Kong and Israel.

But he said it was “of huge international concern” and early indications showed the current vaccines “may be less effective against it”.

The UK has already added South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Namibia to its travel red list.

Passengers arriving into the UK from these countries from 4am on Sunday will be required to book and pay for a government-approved hotel quarantine for 10 days.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said ministers were taking a “safety-first approach”.

Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said the variant was the “most worrying” seen by scientists but much was as yet unknown.

South African scientists sounded the alarm over the variant, which they fear is behind a spike in cases in some regions, including the Gauteng province, which includes the cities of Pretoria and Johannesburg.