One Direction have refuted rumours that their fourth album will be their last.

‘Four’ was released last month and it had been rumoured that it could be the final LP from the boyband. However, speaking at the inaugural BBC Music Awards in London earlier this evening (December 11), the group confirmed that there would definitely be a fifth album.

“Yes, there will be,” said Niall Horan, when asked if there would be another LP from the group, despite the fact that bandmate Liam Payne had just mysteriously commented: “We’re just so happy that this album (‘Four’) has gone really well for us and it’s kind of given us somewhere else to go with music now, if we do happen to do another one…”.

The band are set to appear on The X Factor this weekend, the show on which they formed in 2010. Speaking about last weekend’s headline-grabbing performance of ‘Uptown Funk’ by contestant Fleur East, Niall Horan commented: “What Fleur did at the weekend was pretty special.” Liam Payne added: “That was a huge performance. You don’t often see people doing a bit of boogie-ing on X Factor and it was well structured boogie-ing. It was amazing.”

Earlier this week East apologised to the song’s writer Mark Ronson after his release of ‘Uptown Funk’ was rushed forward five weeks in the wake of her performance. “Yeah, I’m really sorry but all I can say is it’s props to all their creative hard work because it’s an amazing song,” said East. “I don’t know what they were thinking in their minds. I don’t think anyone expected my performance to be as popular as it was.”

One Direction will tour the UK in 2015. Starting with three nights at London’s O2 Arena from September 24, the boyband will then visit Manchester, Glasgow, Newcastle, Sheffield and Birmingham on their arena tour.