‘Confusing, chaotic & incoherent’: Simon Calder on travel rules as changes expected today

Britons have had to contend with a lot of changing rules and regulations over the past 18 months. International travel, in particular, has been a sore point for the Government, trying to balance the health of the country and people’s wish to go on holiday.

“Airlines are standing by to put flights and holidays on, especially for that important half term break.”

While this is good news for holidaymakers, there may be a catch to the good news of a reduced red list and the scrapping of PCR tests.

Simon said: “We’re also hearing rumours.

“It’s possible unvaccinated travellers might have to go into quarantine even if they’re coming back from low risk countries.”

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This potential new rule would effectively stop a minority of Britons from being able to go abroad.

Simon continued: “At the moment, if you’re not jabbed and you’re coming back from Croatia, from Germany, from Malta, there’s no self-isolation, we’re hearing that might change and you might need to go into quarantine.”

While this would be very bad news for unvaccinated Britons, the general outlook was positive.

Simon said: “We’re looking for a lot more certainty, a lot more simplicity and hopefully, something cheaper and easier to organise.”

“Then, five months ago today, the Government said ‘right, you can go abroad, but by the way, you can only go to these very few countries that’s Gibraltar, Iceland and Portugal’.

“And 10 days later they said ‘sorry, you can’t go to Portugal without quarantining anymore’.”

He continued: “It’s absolutely confusing, chaotic, incoherent.

“A lot of people say it’s completely pointless, especially with these PCR tests when you come back, they’re showing zero variants of concern and it’s effectively a tax on hard working people who want to go on holiday and also there’s so much uncertainty that people aren’t prepared to book.”

With PCR tests set to be scraped and the red list reduced, the travel industry may get their wish for simplified travel rules going forward.