Boris Johnson warns England to not book summer holidays abroad yet as traffic light system confirmed
Boris Johnson has told people in England not to book summer holidays abroad yet as the government today said international travel could be banned until June.
Number 10 released an update on its international travel taskforce today, with the government saying “the state of the pandemic abroad, and the progress of vaccination programmes in other countries” meant England may not allow international travel on 17 May as previously planned.
The update also confirmed that there would be a traffic light system to decide which countries will be able to resume quarantine-free travel to England.
The taskforce is expected to release its full findings on international travel by the end of this week.
“Taking into account the latest situation with variants and the evidence about the efficacy of vaccines against them, we will confirm in advance whether non-essential international travel can resume on 17 May, or whether we will need to wait longer before lifting the outbound travel restriction,” the government said.
However, Boris Johnson and Chris Whitty also at the press conference said that nothing in the data so far in England was indicating that the UK Government would need to deviate from its roadmap out of lockdown.
“I’m hopeful…but plainly there is a surge in other parts of the world and we’re mindful of that,” Johnson said.
This led to an angry reaction from the travel industry.
Heathrow Airport chief executive John Holland-Kaye claimed “the opportunity has been missed to provide more certainty”, while trade body the Business Travel Association described the update as “beyond disappointing”.
On the traffic light system, the report said: “This will add to our current system a new green category with no isolation requirement on return to the UK – although pre-departure and post arrival tests would still be needed.
“This new category will accommodate countries where we judge the risk to be lower, based for instance on vaccinations, infection rates, the prevalence of variants of concern, and their genomic sequencing capacity (or access to genomic sequencing).”
Although ministers from European countries such as Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Malta have recently said they will welcome British tourists for summer only Malta has vaccinated more than 30 per cent of its population.
If cases continue to rise across the Channel while vaccinations remain sluggish the UK Government could find itself in situation where it’s banning its own citizens from taking holidays on the continent because the risk of introducing variants back into the UK remains too high.
Johnson added at the Downing Street press conference “I know that people watching will want to know exactly what they can do from May 17th but we’re not there yet.
“As soon as we have solid information, more solid data, we’ll let you know.
“But that’s where we are for the time being.”
Commenting on the Prime Minister’s update on the global travel taskforce, Airport Operators Association Chief Executive Karen Dee said:
“It is disappointed that the initial update from the Prime Minister continues to suggest significant barriers to international travel and may push back the date of restart beyond 17 May.
“While a new green category with no isolation requirement on return to the UK is very welcome, potentially costly and onerous testing requirements would limit the possibilities for many people to travel to countries in the green category.
“We look forward to further detailed on the Global Travel Taskforce’s report on 12 April and urge the Government to scrutinise the evidence provided by industry, health experts and others that set out how a risk-based, proportionate system could open up aviation without quarantine and with affordable, rapid testing.”