U.K. stocks advanced on Friday as hopes that a no-deal Brexit will be avoided helped offset uncertainty related to rising Covid-19 cases and fears of broader lockdowns.
Finance minister Rishi Sunak will announce later in the day a new plan to support jobs and businesses that are affected by coronavirus shutdowns.
Meanwhile, health minister Matt Hancock warned the country has reached a "perilous moment" in the fight against the virus as more than 17,540 new Covid-19 cases were recorded on Thursday.
The benchmark FTSE 100 rose 40 points, or 0.7 percent, to 6,017 after gaining half a percent on Thursday.
Mail and office owner British Land rallied 3.6 percent after saying it would soon resume the payment of dividends.
Rising oil prices helped lift energy stocks, with BP Plc rising 2 percent and Royal Dutch Shell gaining 2.6 percent.
Cruise operator Carnival jumped 2.6 percent after it reported a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss.
Stagecoach Group tumbled 3.4 percent. The bus and rail company said its outlook for the year ending 1 May 2021 is unchanged from when the Group announced full year results in July 2020.
In economic news, the U.K. economy grew at a moderate pace in August as lockdown measures continued to ease, the Office for National Statistics said.
Gross domestic product climbed 2.1 percent sequentially, slower than the 6.4 percent expansion seen in July. This was the fourth consecutive monthly increase following a record fall of 19.5 percent in April.
August GDP was 21.7 percent higher than its April 2020 low. Nonetheless, it remained 9.2 percent below the levels seen in February 2020.
Another government report revealed that the visible trade deficit widened to GBP 9.01 billion from GBP 7.86 billion in July as exports grew only 0.4 percent from the previous month, while imports climbed 3.7 percent.
The overall trade surplus totaled GBP 1.36 billion in August versus a GBP 1.68 billion surplus a month ago.
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