Be honest about summer holidays abroad, MPs warn No 10

Ministers must level with Britons that summer holidays abroad may not be possible unless other countries make better progress on vaccination, senior MPs have warned.

Downing Street now believes there is little prospect of mass international tourism this summer, though insiders said they were hopeful about staycations in Britain. “Internally the view is that UK holidays may be possible depending on the circumstances but going abroad is very unlikely,” a government source said.

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On Monday Boris Johnson said he was “optimistic” about summer breaks but insiders said he was referring to holidays within the UK. Other cabinet ministers have warned it is too early to book overseas trips.

Yvette Cooper, chair of the home affairs select committee, said it was vital that Britain’s immunisation programme was protected. “The vaccine programme is immensely important and we need to make sure it’s protected against any threat from new variants, and there may be others as we go forward,” she told the Guardian.

“The government should be honest with us about how long these measures may need to last if new variants are spreading around the world. All of us are desperate for some holidays and some sunshine but the government should not be making false promises again.”

Following a bitter dispute with the EU over vaccine supplies, Matt Hancock said on Monday that the UK could be generous in sharing its supply of vaccines. The former Labour minister, Chris Bryant, who chairs the Commons committee on standards, said it was in the UK’s interests to be open with its vaccine supply to facilitate international travel and protect against the spread of new variants.

“Everyone is talking about whether they will be going on holiday to Spain or lying on a beach in Croatia once they have been vaccinated – the reality is that may not happen until they have been vaccinated as well,” he said.

“This doesn’t just concern holidays but visiting family and friends, millions of Britons living abroad. In a normal year, one in four Britons go to Spain and one in six goto France. It is in our interests for everyone to be getting vaccinated, let alone the moral case.”

Bryant said it was too early to say when the UK could safely begin sharing its supply. Ministers have suggested this could be in phase 2 of the rollout, once over-50s, healthcare staff and the most vulnerable under-50s have been vaccinated. But he said vaccination strategy should not be framed as a “race” between countries: “This is a team sport.”

The former Conservative chief whip, Mark Harper, who chairs the Covid Recovery Group of MPs, which has lobbied ministers for a swifter easing of restrictions, said the government needed to be clear about the duration of travel curbs and whether they would continue indefinitely to protect against new strains. “The chief scientific adviser has said that Covid-19 will be with us forever. So we’ll need proper systems in place to protect against the risk of the inevitable new variants of the virus arriving in the UK from overseas,” he said.

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“But those systems must enable travel to continue safely – both for those who wish to holiday abroad as well as the many who wish to visit Britain. The livelihoods of nearly 2 million of us will depend on getting this right.”

Cooper’s committee has examined different border control measures, including in their August report which condemned the government for the lax measures and mixed messaging. “Those countries that have been most successful in controlling infections from the start have introduced much stronger border measures,” she said.

“We should be learning lessons and not making the same mistakes as we made in the first wave. The current measures are important but they don’t go far enough and they should be looking to expand to something like the South Korea model which combines testing at the border, quarantine hotels and a stronger management of home quarantine so there are much more safeguards. We are already seeing more South Africa cases in the UK because the current system just hasn’t worked.”

Recent days have seen a surge in UK holiday bookings as hopes of vacations abroad have dwindled, with some sites reporting a 98% increase. Autumn bookings abroad were reported to be up.

Johnson said the government would be taking a very cautious approach to any easing of border restrictions. “What I don’t think people want to see is a speedy relaxation that leads to an upsurge in the virus and I think everybody understands the need for tough border controls while there is a risk of new variants coming in. We want to take no risks with our borders,” he said on Monday. The vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, previously said it was “absolutely” too early to book a summer break abroad.