Boris Johnson urges Britons to avoid ‘amber list’ countries for holidays

Boris Johnson on Tuesday urged Britons not to travel to countries on the government’s “amber list”, as the opposition intensified its criticism of his border policy.

The UK prime minister said the public should only travel to amber-list countries such as France and Spain under exceptional circumstances, following reports that on Monday about 150 flights departed from the UK to such destinations.

“It is very important for people to grasp what an amber-list country is, it is not somewhere where you should be going on holiday,” he said during a visit to a vaccination centre in Islington, north London.

“If people do go to an amber-list country, if they absolutely have to for some pressing family or urgent business reason . . . then please bear in mind that you will have to self-isolate, you’ll have to take tests and do a passenger locator form and all the rest of it.”

The government lifted its ban on overseas visits on Monday. Travel to red-list countries is most restricted, with Britons returning to the UK expected to complete passenger locator forms and stay in managed quarantine hotels for 10 days after their return.

Official UK government guidance indicates that the public should “not travel to amber-list countries or territories”, with Britons returning from those countries expected to take coronavirus tests and self-isolate for 10 days at home.

Meanwhile, travellers returning to the UK from green-list countries such as Australia and Portugal must book and pay for Covid-19 tests on their return.

Johnson also said on Tuesday that, despite the sharp increase in cases of the B.1.617.2 variant first identified in India, current scientific advice indicated that the next stage of lifting restrictions would be able to go ahead on June 21 as planned.

“I don’t see anything conclusive at the moment to say that we need to deviate from the road map,” he said. “But we’ve got to be cautious and we are keeping everything under very close observation.”

The concern over the UK’s border policy and the lockdown-easing timetable comes as the number of reported UK cases of the new variant increased by 76 per cent between Thursday and Monday, to 2,323 cases. More than 80 local authorities have reported five or more cases of the strain, Matt Hancock, health secretary, told MPs in the House of Commons.

Johnson said that “we will know a lot more in a few days’ time” about whether the new strain will affect the UK’s lockdown-easing schedule.

“Each day we can see better what’s happening in the hotspots and that will guide us on the big decisions ahead,” one senior official said. “We’ll know more about transmissibility next week.”

Following Johnson’s comments, Lord James Bethell, health minister, argued that the public should avoid all international travel, including green-list countries, in the coming months. “We do ask people, particularly as we go into the summer, travelling is not for this year, please stay in this country,” he said.

The opposition Labour party has argued that India should have been placed on the red list sooner, and its leadership has accused the government of failing to communicate its border policy in a coherent manner.

“The Conservatives’ border policies have unravelled into dangerous chaos within a matter of hours since international travel was opened up,” Nick Thomas-Symonds, shadow home secretary, argued.

“There is a lack of strategy, which has meant the UK government, and their own ministers, are giving out conflicting and confused advice about whether people are allowed to travel, especially between amber-list countries.”

Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former chief adviser, described the UK’s border policy on Tuesday as a “joke” and decried the “part disaster, part non-existent” response to the pandemic.

Hinting at the criticisms he is likely to levy at the government in his House of Commons select committee appearance next Wednesday, Cummings suggested that he will reveal details of government minutes from crucial internal meetings, and called for full transparency.

“Openness to scrutiny would have exposed government errors weeks earlier than happened . . . there is *no* justification for secrecy, public interest unarguably is *open scrutiny of the plans*,” he tweeted.

The prime minister’s spokesperson pushed back on the criticism, arguing that the UK had “some of the strongest border measures in the world”.

Meanwhile, regarding the government’s decision on India, George Eustice, environment secretary, on Tuesday argued that the number of infections was just one of several indicators used to determine whether or not a country was placed on the red list.

“One of the things you have to take into account is not just how many declared cases there are but also their testing capacity,” he told ITV on Tuesday. “So where India had much greater testing capacity than Pakistan, that’s why a decision was taken to put Pakistan on earlier.”