Foreign holiday ban could be extended
HOPES for summer holidays abroad were dealt a blow last night as the Government warned booking abroad now is ‘premature’ and ‘potentially risky’.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said rising Covid infections and cases of new variants across Europe meant re-opening borders too soon would be ‘reckless’. He refused to rule out an extension to the May 17 ban on foreign holidays, saying that re-starting them risked importing vaccine-busting strains and derailing Britain’s successful inoculation drive.
At First Minister’s Questions last week, Nicola Sturgeon failed to say whether restrictions would be needed for the rest of the year, saying it was not possible to give ‘certainty’.
She added: ‘I took part in a four-nations call last night, chaired by Michael Gove, who was at pains to say that the May 17 date for the UK Government was not set in stone and it would depend on the state of the virus.’
In better news, it emerged ministers are draw
ing up plans for a new ‘traffic light’ system which could see restrictions fall away for destinations with higher vaccination rates.
Scientists are increasingly concerned about rising infections on the Continent and the spread of new variants, particularly in France where the South African strain accounts for up to 10 per cent of cases.
Almost three-quarters of EU member states are seeing rising infections. Several affected countries – including France, Italy and Poland – have gone back into forms of lockdown.
A task force led by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps will report to Boris Johnson on April 12 about how and when travel can safely resume. But the ban on holidays abroad will remain until at least May 17.
At a meeting of Holyrood’s Covid-19 committee last week, Constitution Secretary Mike Russell was asked about the prospect of international travel opening up within the next couple of months. He said: ‘We don’t anticipate international travel opening up within that timescale. Non-essential international travel is not on the agenda for some considerable time.’
Similarly, when asked about foreign holidays Mr Wallace told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: ‘Even though the UK is almost leading the
‘Putting national effort at risk’
world on vaccination rates, it is really important that we don’t import new variants and undermine all that hard work.
‘I haven’t booked my holiday, I will wait to see what the response is from those task forces in April. I think it would be premature to do that.’
Regarding an extension to the current ban, he said: ‘I’m not going to rule anything out. We are not going to do anything that puts at risk the national effort to control the pandemic.’ The EU’s snail-paced vaccine rollout means in destinations such as Spain, Italy and Portugal only around 9 per cent of the population has been given at least one jab. This compares with 40 per cent in the UK.
One of the criteria to be assessed by Mr Shapps’s task force is how well vaccines have been rolled out in other countries. Ministers are said to be drawing up a ‘traffic light’ system under which tough restrictions would remain in place for travel to ‘red’ countries but would fall away for ‘green’ ones.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Show, Linda Bauld, professor of public health at Edinburgh University, said: ‘We can go on holiday – but it’s where we can go on holiday. What we should perhaps be focusing on more is that we need to revitalise our domestic tourism sector.’
Tim Alderslade, of Airlines UK, said: ‘Under a tiered system based on risk, international travel can meaningfully restart and build up with minimal restrictions in time.’