Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted the time was right to move from enforceable rules to personal responsibility, and use the summer months to prepare for a potentially more damaging wave of COVID-19 in the winter.
Johnson had initially aimed for a full reopening on June 21, but was forced to push back the date because of a surge in the highly contagious Delta variant.
The Queen - Britain's longest-serving monarch - was accompanied by her 72-year-old son and heir, Prince Charles, as she returned to public duties three weeks after the Duke of Edinburgh was laid to rest. He died last month, aged 99.
The trip will coincide with India's annual Republic Day celebrations on 26 January, will also come just weeks after the UK leaves the European Union single market on 31 December, and as it seeks new trade deals post-Brexit.
Whatever happens, Britain will leave the EU single market and customs union, leading to the re-introduction of border checks for the first time in decades.
The 56-year-old Conservative leader was one of the first senior British officials to get infected with the virus in April, after his government was slow to adopt strict lockdown measures.
Boris Johnson spent three days in intensive care with coronavirus in April. This time around, he said he was not suffering any symptoms and health minister Matt Hancock on Monday described him as 'full of beans'.
Renewed stay-at-home restrictions and business closures came into force Thursday and are set to last for four weeks yet have been met with scepticism that they can halt the worst death toll from the virus in Europe.
Tighter restrictions that come into force in the eight new areas on Saturday ban households mixing indoors, limit groups meeting outside to six, and advise against non-essential travel.
The Conservative leader is desperate to avoid a repeat of the devastating outbreak in March when coronavirus swept across the UK, leaving more than 43,000 confirmed deaths so far - the worst toll from the pandemic in Europe.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's claim that the 27-nation EU is plotting to choke off food supplies via crippling new trade barriers between Britain and Northern Ireland is 'spin and not the truth,' Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told BBC television.
Irish Justice Minister Helen McEntee said that provisions for Northern Ireland in Britain's EU withdrawal treaty were agreed by both sides to ensure fair competition after Brexit, and to comply with a 1998 peace pact that ended three decades of unrest in the province.
Students will now be awarded the grade that their teachers had predicted for them based on past performance, Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government said on Monday.
His government unveiled a 'Better Health' campaign on Monday, saying it would tackle the 'obesity time bomb' by banning advertising of junk food before 9pm, ending 'buy one get one free' deals and putting calories on menus.
A day after a report by parliament’s intelligence and security committee said the government had failed to try to find out whether Russia had meddled in the Brexit vote, Johnson’s government doubled down on its refusal to launch a review.
British PM Boris Johnson is coming under growing political pressure to not only dump Huawei but also adopt a tough line with China for its treatment of Hong Kong and repression of ethnic Uighurs in the western Xinjiang region.
People who fail to cover their face risk a fine of up to £100 ($123, 109 euros) with enforcement to be carried out by the police.
The United Kingdom has one of the highest rates of obesity in the world: nearly one in three adults are obese, according to the OECD.
