Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the move will ‘mean greater freedom in time for Easter’.
14 March 2022
All remaining coronavirus travel measures including passenger locator forms will end on Friday, the Transport Secretary has said, in a move that will make foreign holidays easier even as coronavirus cases rise in the UK.
Grant Shapps said on Monday that the changes, which also include the requirement for unvaccinated people to be tested for Covid-19 before entering the UK, will “mean greater freedom in time for Easter”.
After a meeting with senior ministers, he said the measures will end for travel to the UK from 4am on Friday under the Government’s plans for “living with Covid”.
Mr Shapps said: “These changes are possible due to our vaccine rollout and mean greater freedom in time for Easter.”
The move comes as coronavirus infections were rising in all four UK nations for the first time since the end of January, with levels in Scotland already at a record high, according to the latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics.
The numbers for hospital patients with Covid were also rising, up 19% week-on-week in England.
Hospital admissions with coronavirus in England remain well below the peaks reached during the Omicron and previous waves, while in Scotland the figure was close to the record peak seen in January last year.
The time-consuming passenger locator forms require people to fill in travel details, their address in the UK and vaccination status.
They have been used to track people after outbreaks of the virus.
They are currently required by all arrivals coming to the UK from outside Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man.
