THE government must stop “moving the goalposts” in decisions on coronavirus restrictions and should publish data thresholds for its road map out of lockdown, a panel of MPs has urged.

A report by the cross-party Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee criticised a lack of transparency from ministers throughout the pandemic.

It said that the framework for lockdown and tiering decisions had changed “repeatedly,” and didn’t always appear to reflect new information.

The committee warned that this had led to confusion and mistrust among the public, despite trust being a “crucial factor” in the success of the response to the crisis.

Leisure and hospitality sectors have not seen the data underpinning decisions to impose restrictions on their businesses, the report noted.

The MPs said that the government’s priority must be to ensure there is a “clear and consistent framework for making lockdown decisions as a path back to normality is charted.”

They called on the government to publish thresholds for moving between steps in the road map out of the current national lockdown.

“The new road map must be updated to point to where data can be found under each indicator,” the committee wrote.

“The road map indicators should be added to the dashboard, with clear links through to the data at lower local-authority level underpinning each one.”

The report added: “The framework for lockdown and tiering decisions has changed repeatedly throughout this pandemic.

“While the committee does not object to the inclusion of new metrics (such as vaccines), changes in the framework to date have not always appeared to reflect new information.

“This has amounted to a moving of the goalposts, which creates uncertainty, makes it impossible to see trends and therefore must stop.”

Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove was also criticised in the report for declining to appear before the committee last month, with MPs describing his refusal as “contemptuous of Parliament.”

They said that ministers sent in his place had been “poorly briefed and unable to answer the committee’s questions.”

The committee’s criticisms follow a warning by the head of the Office for National Statistics of a further wave of Covid-19 infections in the autumn.

There is “no doubt” that there will be another wave, said Professor Sir Ian Diamond, adding there was a lot of regional variation in the number of people with antibodies.