AMBER WATCHLIST AXED
Boris U-turn on controversial plans after ‘Rishi and Shapps revolt’
BORIS Johnson last night abandoned controversial plans for a new travel alert list following a Tory revolt that stretched to the Cabinet.
In a dramatic U-turn, Government sources said plans for a new ‘amber watchlist’ – which were only agreed last week – would not now go ahead.
The Prime Minister signalled the change of mind yesterday, saying he wanted to move to a system that was ‘as simple and user-friendly for people as possible’.
Mr Johnson said the UK had to take precautions to ensure dangerous new Covid variants do not enter the country from abroad.
But he said ministers would take a ‘balanced approach’, which also recognised the importance of Britons’ summer holidays.
The U-turn came hours after Government minister Matt Warman was sent out to defend the policy on the airwaves.
A Whitehall source last night predicted that the Government would return to a simple three-step traffic light system this week, leaving the red, amber and green levels.
The source said the green watchlist will be
‘A disaster for travel industry’
axed along with the amber plus category which was created on the hoof last month to enable quarantine from France to continue when it was lifted for other amber countries.
The proposal for an amber watchlist would have added a sixth level to the Government’s already unwieldy traffic light system.
Holidaymakers travelling to countries such as Spain and Italy would have been warned that their destinations could be added to the red list while they were away, leaving them to face costly hotel quarantine on their return to the UK. Huw Merriman, Tory chairman of the Commons transport committee, warned the new system would create a ‘massive red flag’ which would see bookings ‘collapse’.
Airlines UK warned the change could damage summer bookings and put tens of thousands of jobs at risk in the beleaguered industry. Travel expert Paul Charles, chief executive of The PC Agency consultancy firm, described the idea as a ‘disaster’.
The proposal also sparked a Cabinet backSpain lash, with Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, Trade Secretary Liz Truss and Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng all said to have raised concerns. At the weekend, it emerged that Mr Sunak had even gone to the unusual length of writing to the PM to warn that ‘draconian’ restrictions on travel were putting jobs in the sector at risk.
The idea was signed off by ministers at a meeting of the Cabinet’s Covid Operations Committee last week. It is said to have been proposed by Health Secretary Sajid Javid amid concerns that cases of the Beta variant in countries like could be imported to the UK. Travellers to countries on the amber watchlist would have been warned explicitly that they could face hotel quarantine at a cost of £1,750 each on their return if the situation worsened and their destination was placed on the red list.
But critics argued the measure would cause needless anxiety for thousands of holidaymakers who are already travelling in the knowledge that the status of their destination could change.
Henry Smith, chairman of the Future Of Aviation group of MPs, said the plan would ‘just put more people off from booking international travel and will mean that there isn’t an August of meaningful travel to save travel and aviation sector jobs’.
Government sources last night confirmed the idea had been scrapped. One insider said: ‘It was put forward by some people last week, but the view now is it just complicates things for people without delivering any real benefit. It will not be going ahead.’
Another said: ‘I think the idea was designed to give people more certainty, but it seems to have had the opposite effect.’
Speaking on a visit to an Airbus factory in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, yesterday, the PM stressed the importance of keeping the travel system simple. He said people ‘have got to remember this is still a dangerous virus and we must try and stop variants coming in’.
But he added: ‘We also have to recognise that people want badly to go on their summer holidays. We need to get the travel industry moving again. We need to get our city centres open again. And so we want an approach that is as simple as we can possibly make it.’
Earlier, Mr Warman had defended the plan to create an amber watchlist.
The Digital Infrastructure Minister said it would allow people to make ‘informed decisions’ about
the ‘direction of travel that a country is going in’.
He added: ‘The most important thing that the Government can do is make sure that people have as much information as they possibly can – that they have information about which direction a foreign country might be going in so that they don’t inadvertently find themselves having to quarantine when they get back.’
Ministers are due to meet on Thursday to decide which countries should be placed on which list for the rest of August.