Retailers can reopen on June 15 - British business minister

Retailers will be allowed to reopen on June 15, subject to social distancing guidelines, British business minister Alok Sharma said on Tuesday.

Britain has already begun slowly opening for business after shuttering large swathes of the economy and ordering citizens to stay at home on March 23 to limit the spread of COVID-19 as the disease threatened to overwhelm the health system. The announcement, which will only apply in England because Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland set their own policy on lockdown restrictions, had previously been announced, subject to sufficient progress against the coronavirus being made.

"This is the latest step in the careful restarting of our economy and will enable high streets up and down the country to spring back to life," Sharma told reporters.