Good morning. Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, caused a row with the travel industry in April last year when he said people should not book a summer holiday and now he has done it again. In an interview on the Today programme he said that, “on the shrinking chance” that anyone was thinking about a summer holiday, he would advise them not to book anything now – not just abroad, but domestically too.
Given that dreaming about a holiday is one of the things people are most likely to be doing in lockdown, it was an odd form of words. Here is the quote in full.
First of all, I should say, people shouldn’t be booking holidays right now, not domestically or internationally …
On the shrinking chance that there is anybody listening to this interview at this stage, and thinking of booking a holiday under the current circumstances … and until we know the route out of lockdown, which we can’t know until we have more data, more information on vaccines as well, please don’t go ahead and book holidays for something which, at this stage, is illegal to actually go and do – whether it’s here or abroad.
And, further down the line, I simply don’t know the answer to the question of where we’ll be up to this summer; it’s too early to be able to give you that information. You would want to wait until that’s clear before booking anything. So the best advice to people is do nothing at this stage.
Shapps said that Boris Johnson would be saying more about the easing of restrictions when he publishes his roadmap out of lockdown later this month. But he said he did not know whether the plan would include guidance on holidays.
I will post more from his interviews shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
12pm: Boris Johnson faces Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs.
12.15pm: Dr Andrew Goodall, chief executive of NHS Wales, speaks at a Welsh government coronavirus press conference.
12.30pm: Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, makes a statement to MPs about cladding. As Jessica Elgot reports, he will announce billions of pounds in extra support to address the cladding crisis that has left homeowners bankrupt and distraught.
12.30pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, takes questions in the Scottish parliament.
1.30pm: Downing Street is expected to hold its daily lobby briefing.
Politics Live is now doubling up as the UK coronavirus live blog and, given the way the Covid crisis eclipses everything, this will continue for the foreseeable future. But we will be covering non-Covid political stories too, and when they seem more important or more interesting, they will take precedence.
Here is our global coronavirus live blog.
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