Tuesday, 19 Mar 2024

6,000,000 holidays to Spain and Greece facing ruin if travel rules change again

Nearly six million holidaymakers could have their summer plans ruined if Spain and Greece follow France onto the ‘amber plus’ list.

Labour said an estimated 5,857,558 people face the prospect of last-minute quarantine requirements after booking trips during the ‘summer of chaos’.

Ministers introduced an exemption for fully-vaccinated Britons who now don’t have to self-isolate at home for 10 days upon returning from countries on the amber list.

But the exemption was removed for France amid concern over the Beta variant, creating what critics call an ‘amber plus’ on the traffic light system for foreign travel.

There has been speculation that Greece and Spain could face the same measures as France, though the Government has not confirmed this.

Labour’s shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon said: ‘Not only have they failed to protect our borders, allowing Covid cases to rocket – they also refuse to be straight with the public and give them the information they need to book travel with confidence, with clear information on the direction of travel of infections in each country.

‘Families who have booked holidays in good faith now risk losing out – 10-day quarantine is simply not an option for many people who are already struggling financially thanks to the pandemic.’

The opposition estimated the number of people to have booked holidays to those three nations by looking at official data for past travel and adjusting for lower willingness to travel during the pandemic by comparing with surveys.

A Department for Transport spokesman said: ‘The travel list allocations have not changed for Spain or Greece.

‘We are closely monitoring the data and will take swift action on travel list allocations and international travel requirements should the data show that countries’ risk to England has changed.’

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