Covid travel rules 'kind of back to good old days', Transport Secretary says
25 January 2022, 09:03
The Transport Secretary said changes to coronavirus travel rules were "kind of back to the good old days".
Speaking to LBC's Nick Ferrari, Grant Shapps said all fully vaccinated travellers would have to do, from February 11, is fill in a passenger locater form.
But he urged people to continue to get their booster jabs, as other countries required it for travel.
He said currently having two doses of the vaccine and not the booster was enough to arrive in England without having to isolate or take tests.
But he said: "Increasingly countries elsewhere are requiring the booster for you to go there.
"So an important message for people listening to your show, particularly perhaps younger people who maybe think 'Oh, I haven't bothered with the booster, I've been jabbed but I haven't bothered with the booster', get the booster because this summer, from talking to my counterparts around the world in Europe and elsewhere, if you want to travel, say go to Spain on holiday this summer, they are almost certainly going to require that booster jab."
On Monday the Transport Secretary told MPs post-arrival lateral flow tests will no longer be required as restrictions were "firmly placed in the past".
He told the Commons the move would help the aviation industry to "take back to the skies".
Yesterday, the Prime Minister said the rules could be lifted because the country was "moving through the Omicron wave".
Boris Johnson said: "So what we're doing on travel, to show that this country is open for business, open for travellers, you will see changes so that people arriving no longer have to take tests if they have been vaccinated, if they have been double vaccinated."
Mr Shapps said: "We promised we wouldn't keep these measures in place a day longer than was necessary and it's obvious to me now that border testing for vaccinated travellers has outlived its usefulness, and we're therefore scrapping all travel tests for vaccinated people.
"Not only making travel much easier but also, of course, saving about £100 per family on visits abroad, providing certainty to passengers, to carriers and (the) vital tourism sector for the spring and the summer seasons."
And he added this would help "ensure that 2022 is the year in which restrictions on travel, on lockdowns and limits on people's lives are firmly placed in the past".
The changes will come into effect from 4am on February 11 - in time for the half-term holiday.
