A minute’s silence will be held across the country at 8pm next Sunday to remember the Queen’s life, Downing Street has announced.
It will be “a national moment of reflection” on her “life and legacy” which can be observed “privately at home on your own or with friends and neighbours,” the prime minister’s spokesman said.
The event will come the evening before the Queen’s funeral, when world leaders will descend on London for what could be a logistical nightmare for the capital’s authorities.
However, contrary to reports, the US president Joe Biden can be driven to the ceremony in Westminster Abbey if he chooses and will not be required to travel on a bus.
A leaked document suggesting visiting dignitaries would be expected to travel together, to ease congestion, is merely “guidance”, the spokesman said.
Asked if Mr Biden and other leaders concerned about their security could choose how to travel to the funeral, the spokesman replied: “Yes. Arrangements for different leaders will vary.”
No 10 also made clear that people retained their right to protest against the monarchy, should they choose, after examples of arrests of vocal republicans.
The spokesman said individual cases are “an operational matter” for the police, but said: “The fundamental right to protest remains a keystone of our democracy.”
Downing Street and Buckingham Palace are also wrestling with how to cope with the hundreds of thousands of mourners expected to queue to see the Queen’s coffin at parliament, from late on Wednesday.
The spokesman would not be drawn on the numbers expected – beyond it being “far more” than the 200,000 people who attended the Queen Mother’s lying in state, in 2002.
It is anticipated that people will have to queue overnight, so they will be given numbered wristbands to enable them to leave and rejoin the queue – but tents will not be allowed.
“There will be toilet facilities, there will be first aid available, there will be the ability for people obviously to go and use toilets and return to queues and things like that,” the spokesman said.
Commuters might wish to “change their working patterns” because London will be “extremely busy” until the funeral next Monday.
Some analysts have warned the Bank Holiday to mark the funeral could hit the fragile economy severely enough to tip the UK into recession earlier than expected.
But the spokesman defended the holiday as necessary and “something that everybody wants”, adding: “I am not going to speculate on the effect on the economy.”
The government expects to hold what it calls “a fiscal event” – to launch Liz Truss’s huge unfunded tax cuts – next week, probably on Thursday.
Parliament could sit again from as early as Tuesday next week, as government business returns to normal after the funeral – although a further week of “royal mourning” will be held.
