Don’t start booking any summer holidays yet, government warns

Transport Secretary warns the public that it is ‘too soon’ to start booking holidays ‘domestically or internationally’.

Grant Shapps told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme that it’s ‘too soon’ to book holidays, reminding people that it is currently illegal.

He said: “First of all, I should say, people shouldn’t be booking holidays right now – not domestically or internationally. 

“The Prime Minister will say more about the route to unlocking this country, starting when he speaks about it on February 22nd.

“But we don’t know yet whether that will include information on things like holidays, simply because we don’t know where we’ll be up to in terms of the decline in cases, deaths, the vaccination.

“And not just the vaccination programme here, but the vaccination programme internationally, because people will be going outside of our borders. So it’s too soon.”

On the ‘chance’ someone listening was considering booking a holiday, he said ‘bearing in mind you cannot legally do that at the moment’, before adding: “Please do not go ahead and book holidays for something that at this stage is illegal at home or abroad.”

He went onto explain that the ‘best advice is do nothing at this stage’ as it is too early to give information about summer. 

It comes after Matt Hancock unveiled tough new rules for travel including the possibility of 10-year jail time.

The health secretary said:  “Anyone who lies on the passenger locator form and tries to conceal that they’ve been in a country on the red list in the 10 days before arrival here will face a prison sentence of up to 10 years.”

He made ‘no apologies’ for the strict new rules which include two tests for travellers quarantining, one on day two and day eight of their 10-day isolation period.

There are growing concerns regarding the coronavirus strains here in the UK, with mass testing rolled out in South Manchester to help contain a particular variant.