Boris Johnson today warned Britons working from home that they risk being 'gossiped about' and missing out on 'stimulus and competition' unless they return to the office.
The PM voiced growing confidence that Covid will not spark further lockdowns as he urged people to get 'back to work in the normal way'.
He said the government was always 'humble in the face of nature' and recognised that 'a new variant or another pandemic could always hit us'.
But he insisted: 'The data that I see at the moment is very clear that we are right to stick to Plan A, which is what we are on.'
He said getting back to offices was 'essential for young people in particular'.
'If you are going to learn on the job, you can't just do it on Zoom,' he told LBC radio.
'You have got to be able to come in, you have got to know what everyone else is talking about – otherwise you are going to be gossiped about and you are going to lose out.'
The PM voiced growing confidence that Covid will not spark further lockdowns as he urged people to get 'back to work in the normal way'
Mr Johnson admitted that '100 per cent' of his own staff are not yet back in the office.
But he added: 'The Cabinet Secretary has written a pretty good letter some weeks ago to everybody telling them to get back to their desks.'
In other developments at the Tory conference:
Mr Johnson denied supply chain chaos is a 'crisis' as he said the economy is 'creaking' back into life after Covid and moving to 'higher wages'; The number of offenders forced to wear electronic tags will double under a major initiative from Mr Raab; Rishi Sunak ruled out tax cuts until public finances were on a 'sustainable footing'; Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries questioned whether the BBC would still exist in ten years' time; Mr Johnson pledged that electricity will come entirely from green sources by 2035; Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng rejected calls for more visas for foreign workers; Pig farmers warned of 'disaster' as they protested outside the conference over a shortage of butchers; A party member was suspended after a businesswoman said she had been 'violently assaulted' in a bar; Sir Iain Duncan Smith was hit on the head with a traffic cone by Left-wing protesters chanting 'Tory scum'; Michael Gove signalled a huge shift on planning policy.Mr Johnson launched an ill-fated attempt to get office staff back to their desks last year, which was wrecked by the emergence of the second wave of Covid.
Scientific advisers have pressed him not to repeat the exercise this year because working from home is one of the most effective ways of slowing the spread of the virus.
Instead the Government left it up to employers to encourage a 'gradual return to the workplace'.
Mr Johnson is expected to issue a rallying cry for people to return to workplaces in his conference speech tomorrow.
'He believes very strongly in the value of face-to-face working,' a
