There are no plans to put all European countries on the travel “red list” as a third wave of cases grows in countries such as Germany, France and Italy, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has said.
A month-long lockdown has started in several French regions including Paris, while Germany has announced an Easter shutdown in an attempt to halt rising infections. On Monday the health minister Lord Bethell raised the prospect of having to “red-list all of our European neighbours”, but Hancock said there were “no plans” to do that.
“We do have this red list and the amber list, and at the moment that is working well,” he told LBC.
Hancock told Sky News there were no changes to England’s timings for resuming international travel, after new legislation was brought in that technically extends the ban on holidays until the end of June.
MPs will vote on the laws – officially titled the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Steps) (England) Regulations 2021 – on Thursday, which would come into effect 29 March if passed. Under the laws, attempting to leave the UK without a reasonable excuse would result in a £5,000 fine under new coronavirus laws.
Hancock suggested foreign holidays could be allowed before that date. “The earliest date by which we will allow for international travel … is 17 May. That has not changed,” Hancock told Sky News.
“It is now too early to know where the global travel taskforce will come out and know what the decision will be for 17 May,” he said. “We are seeing this third wave rising in some parts of Europe and we’re also seeing new variants. It is very important that we protect the progress that we have been able to make here in the UK.”
Current border measures were protecting the UK from new variants, Hancock told BBC Breakfast, adding that he understood people’s “yearning” to get away.
“But, obviously, we’re taking a cautious approach because we want any openings that we make to be irreversible.”
Asked if the deaths of 126,000 people and the “extraordinary hit” the UK economy had taken was a “national failure” that had to be learned from, Hancock said the past 12 months had been “the hardest year in a generation”.
“I think the point about learning is central,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Everybody’s lives have been touched, and many have lost loved ones, including my family, and it is critical that we learn from this all the way through.”
