The UK government has
today revealed further details of how it could restart international travel using a traffic-light system of travel risk. However, the
Business Travel Association has criticised the lack of certainty in the plans,
calling them “yet another hammer blow to the business travel industry”.
The announcement of further details the system for
arrivals follows the production of a report for Prime Minister Boris Johnson from
the global travel taskforce.
Johnson had asked the group, chaired by transport
secretary Grant Shapps (top), to report by 12 April on how international travel might
reopen and, in any case, no sooner than 17 May. The taskforce also includes representatives from the
Department for Health and Social Care, the Foreign, Commonwealth and
Development Office and other departments as well as the UK’s
devolved governments. The taskforce took submissions from a number of industry
bodies.
Under the newly
announced rules, the government would drop the requirement to have a permission
to travel form and would introduce a traffic-light system of countries. Countries would
be placed in green, amber and red categories depending on the percentage of
their population that have been vaccinated, the rate of infection, the
prevalence of variants of concern and the country’s access to reliable
scientific data and genomic sequencing.
People coming from
countries on the green list would no longer need to quarantine on arrival but
would need to take a pre-departure test as well as a PCR test on or before day two
of their arrival back into the UK.
Those
coming from amber countries would need to take a pre-departure test, self-quarantine for ten
days on arrival and take a PCR test on days two and eight with the
option for test to release on day five to end self-isolation
early.
Arrivals from red-list
countries would be banned except for UK and Irish nationals and those with the
right of residence. They would need to enter a government quarantine hotel for
ten days and take a PCR test on days two and eight with no option to test to release.
A green watchlist
will be introduced to identify countries most at risk of moving from green to amber.
The government will
confirm in early May whether international travel can restart safely later that
month and will also announce the countries in each category.
Shapps said: “International
travel is vital – it boosts businesses and underpins the UK economy…The
framework announced today will help allow us to reopen travel safely and
sustainably, ensure we protect our hard-won achievements on the vaccine roll-out,
and offer peace of mind to both passengers and industry as we begin to take
trips abroad once again.”
The restrictions
will be formally reviewed on 28 June 2021 to take account of the domestic and
international health picture, and to see whether current measures could be
rolled back. Further formal reviews will take place no later than 31 July and 1
October 2021.
Commenting on the
announcement, Clive Wratten, CEO of the Business Travel Association, said: “Today’s
report from the global travel taskforce is yet another hammer blow to the
business travel industry.
“Whilst we welcome the acknowledgement of the importance of business and
leisure travel to the UK economy, this theoretical framework provides no more
certainty than the Prime Minister’s brief comments on Monday.
“The traffic light system is something we have long campaigned for.
However, it is only one piece of the jigsaw if the aviation, business, and
leisure travel industries are to survive.
“We urgently ask the Government to at the very least maintain the
current furlough scheme until September for the entire travel supply chain.
This will hopefully enable us to contribute to UK plc as soon as it is safe to
do so.”
Andrew Crawley, American Express GBT’s chief commercial officer said: “After nearly two months of work, it is disappointing that the global travel taskforce report fails to set out a clear roadmap for reopening international travel and lacks fundamental detail. The UK’s proven success at rolling out a national vaccination programme at pace and scale should have enabled the Government to give the needed reassurances to restart international travel.
“A continued absence of detail is detrimental to our economic recovery and the millions of jobs supported by the travel industry. With vaccination programmes continuing apace around the world, we need the Government to turn its attention to the economic health of the UK."