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Sajid Javid has defended that government’s Covid winter plan after scientists warned of a potential new wave of hospital admissions.

Scientists advising the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) warned the burden on the NHS could rise “very quickly” as people returned to their offices after working from home.

But speaking on Sky News, the health secretary said there were no “risk-free” options.

“It is right that experts are looking at what is happening and come up with their best guess of where things might go based on certain assumptions,” he said.

“We have to listen to them but eventually make what we think is the right decision. There is no risk-free decision but I think what we have announced in terms of this plan, is well thought through.”

Javid said increasing hospital admissions could trigger the government’s Plan B for tackling Covid as he refused to rule out another lockdown.

“What happens in the NHS is going to be hugely important to me, to the whole country, making sure that we don’t get to a position again where the NHS becomes unsustainable,” he said.

“If the situation – and it is an ‘if’ – gets out of control, if for example there was a new vaccine-escape variant which no-one can predict, whether it happens or not, we will of course have to act and take new measures.”

But he declined to put a number on how many cases or admissions would trigger Plan B.

Under the blueprint set out by the Government on Tuesday, Plan B includes measures such as vaccine passports, mandatory face masks and advice to work from home.

Boris Johnson was yesterday also urged by his chief scientific adviser on Tuesday to go hard and early if the pandemic significantly worsens.

Patrick Vallance said the nation is at a “pivot point” and told ministers to react swiftly if cases quickly rise, warning “you can’t wait until it’s late because you’ve got to do more”.

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Boris Johnson is mourning the loss of his mother after she died aged 79.

Charlotte Johnson Wahl, a painter, died “suddenly and peacefully” at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, on Monday according to a death notice in The Times.

Johnson once described his mother as the “supreme authority” in the family and credited her with instilling in him the equal value of every human life.

The notice in the Times says she was a “Painter. Mother of Alexander, Rachel, Leo, and Joseph; grandmother of Ludovic, Lara, Charlotte, Milo, Oliver, Cassia, Theodore, Rose, Lula, William, Ruby Noor, Stephanie and Wilfred.”

Labour leader Keir Starmer was among the first politicians to offer his condolences.

“I’m very sorry to learn of the prime minister’s loss. My condolences to him and his family,” he tweeted.

Tory MP Conor Burns said: “So sad to hear of the death of Boris Johnson’s Mum. Thoughts and prayers are with him and the whole of the Johnson clan.”

Fellow Conservative Angela Richardson added: “Sad news for the PM tonight as well as the rest of the Johnson family. Thoughts with them all.”

Conservative Party co-chairman Amanda Milling tweeted: “Thinking of Boris Johnson and his family this evening. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.”

The daughter of the barrister Sir James Fawcett, who was president of the European Commission for Human Rights in the 1970s, Mrs Johnson Wahl studied English at Oxford University.

She interrupted her education to travel to America with Stanley Johnson – who she married in 1963 – before returning to complete her degree as the first married female undergraduate at her college, Lady Margaret Hall.

The couple had four children – Boris, journalist Rachel, former minister Jo and environmentalist Leo – before they divorced in 1979.

As an artist, she made her name as a portrait painter – her sitters included Joanna Lumley and Jilly Cooper – although throughout her life she painted other subjects, including landscapes.

In the years following her divorce, she refused to accept any money from her former husband, eking out a living by selling paintings. She later recalled she was “very hard up”.

In 1988, she married the American professor Nicholas Wahl and moved to New York where she began painting cityscapes – which were the subject of a sell-out exhibition in 2004 – but returned to London following his death in 1996.

At the age of 40, she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease but she never allowed her illness to prevent her painting, steadying herself with a walking frame as she worked.

In 2015, she was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London.