Boris Ditches Rules To Get Britain Moving

Prime Minister boosts holiday hopes as he vows to make travel ‘simpler’ | People badly want to go on summer holidays

- Sam Lister and Steph Spyro

The holiday hopes of millions soared yesterday as “amber watchlist” plans were jettisoned.

As Boris Johnson vowed a simpler approach to get the UK moving, a change to the test and trace app freed more workers from isolation, ending the pingdemic.

The increased Covid holiday restrictions had threatened family getaways – and the future of many travel firms. But the Prime Minister said: “We need to get people, get the travel industry, moving again...need to get our city centres open again.

“And so we want an approach that is as simple as we can possibly make it.” Mr Johnson said that the Government is attempting to strike a balance between allowing holidays overseas and stopping fresh coronavirus variants entering the UK.

He continued: “What I want to see is something that is as simple and as user-friendly for people as possible.

Conservative MPs and travel industry leaders had warned that repeated last-minute rule changes were leading to a collapse in bookings in summer getaways.

Ministers had been preparing to introduce an amber watchlist of countries.

That would have warned travellers that their chosen destination was at risk of being switched into the stricter red category – that would then force them into paying for 10-day hotel quarantine on their return.

Spain is one of the popular destinations said to be earmarked for the list, sparking fears of an exodus back home of an estimated one million Britons keen to avoid any changes.