An emergency Cobra meeting will be held today after meteorologists have predicted record high temperatures across England and Wales.
A government spokesperson told PA that Cabinet Office minister Kit Malthouse will chair a meeting of the Government's Cobra civil contingencies committee to discuss the heatwave with his fellow ministers.
This is the second Cobra meeting Mr Malthouse has chaired regarding the hot weather.
Current forecasts show that the temperature in much of England and Wales will hit the mid-30s on Tuesday, with meteorologists predicting an 80% likelihood that temperatures in certain areas may exceed 35C and even reach 40C.
This would beat out the UK's previous record high of 38.7C, set in Cambridge in 2019.
Temperatures will steadily climb over the weekend, with the heatwave set to peak on Tuesday. The Met Office has already issued warnings for heat for most of England and Wales from Sunday onwards.
Met Office forecaster Alex Deakin said: "We are expecting extreme heat across the UK through the early part of next week, we have issued a red weather warning.
"This heat is unprecedented potentially causing widespread health and infrastructure issues. It’s all to do with high pressure which is moving in through the weekend and then kind of edging away through the early part of next week and as it does so it allows the heat to be drawn up from the south."
Areas along the A1 corridor, which runs from London to Scotland through counties like Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire, have a 50% chance of being subjected to 40C heat.
The Met Office have issued its first ever red warning for extreme heat from London up to Manchester and to thee Vale of York, while the UK Health Security Agency has increased its heat warning to "national emergency" levels.
The forecasts match a hypothetical Met Office projection for what the weather in the UK might look like in 2050 - just 28 years early.
This is reached "when a heatwave is so severe and/or prolonged that its effects extend outside the health and social care system... At this level, illness and death may occur among the fit and healthy, and not just in high-risk groups."
A spokesman for the Met Office, Grahame Madge, said: "If people have vulnerable relatives or neighbours, now is the time to make sure they're putting suitable measures in place to be able to cope with the heat because if the forecast is as we think it will be in the red warning area, then people's lives are at risk.
"This is a very serious situation."
Adverse health effects across the UK, including heatstroke and heat exhaustion, could occur as a result of the heat wave. The heat could also exacerbate underlying conditions.
According to a spokesman from 10 Downing Street, "some parts of the network next week to manage the hot weather and to avoid any potential damage".
