On Saturday the Prime Minister announced London and large swathes of southern England would be under the strictest tier that banned households from mixing on Christmas.

But on Friday afternoon Mr Sunak travelled 240 miles to his constituency in Richmond, North Yorkshire, where his family are staying, according to the Sun.

He is said not to have known that the Government would be deciding on a travel ban as he had set off before ministers were briefed on the new strain of coronavirus on Friday.

He was a part of the meeting but had dialled in remotely to the session where ministers decided to make a U-turn on their Christmas bubble plans.

The travel ban in and out of tier four areas now means he will have to spend Christmas in Yorkshire instead of his main home in Downing Street.

Sources said Mr Sunak has no plans to return to the capital and claimed he had already planned to do constituency work this week.

He visited a local hospital over the weekend where he was shown their vaccine roll-out programme.

Aides insisted he did not know new travel restrictions would be put into place until after he had left for Yorkshire.