Portugal among 12 countries on UK government green list for travel

Passengers will be able to travel from England to 12 countries from 17 May without having to quarantine on their return, the UK government has announced.

However, it is unclear if these will apply to people in Scotland as the Scottish Government has yet to reveal whether it will follow suit.

The green list countries are: Portugal including the Azores and Madeira, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland, Faroe

Islands, Gibraltar, Falkland Islands, and Israel.

Uktransportsecretarygrant Shapps warned that many of these countries had restrictionsonuktravellers,including quarantine measures. He said France, Spain and Greece were notonthegreenlist,butitwould be reviewed every three weeks.

Mr Shapps also said Turkey, the Maldives and Nepal would be added to the red list from 4am next Wednesday.

He said travel to those countries should only be “in the most extreme circumstances” and travellers must go to quarantine hotels on their return.

Hesaidcountriesonthegreen list required travellers to take Covid tests both before returning home and two days after arriving back.

Mr Shapps said he was making “the first tentative steps to unlocking international travel” but it was “necessarily cautious”.

The Scottish Government declined to give any indication as to when it would announce any easing of international travel restrictions from north of the Border. The Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association (SPAA) urged Nicola Sturgeon to follow the UK’S lead.