Covid: Don't book holiday yet, government warns

Watergate Bay, Cornwall

People in the UK should not be booking holidays at home or abroad yet due to coronavirus, the transport secretary has told the BBC.

Grant Shapps admitted he did not know "where we'll be" by the summer.

Boris Johnson said he hoped to provide "clarity" on possible lockdown easing later this month, but the public would need to be "a "little more patient".

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused ministers of sending "mixed messages" on whether holidays can happen.

And, in an impassioned attack on the government's position, senior Conservative MP Sir Charles Walker implored the prime minister to give people "something to look forward to".

He told BBC Radio 4's World at One: "We had summer holidays last year when we didn't have a vaccine. Now we've got vaccines coming out of our ears, we are told, 'Don't book a summer holiday,' for crying out loud."

Under lockdown rules, holiday travel is banned in the UK, but a fall in coronavirus cases has fuelled hopes of a return to relative normality by spring or summer.

However, Mr Shapps said: "Please don't go ahead and book holidays. I simply don't know the answer to the question of where we'll be up to this summer.

"It's too early to give that information. The best advice to people is: do nothing at this stage."

Who should people believe? Ministers promising a great British summer or those telling them not to book their place by a pool quite yet?

I imagine most people have more pressing questions - such as when they might see their grandchildren again or get to have a cup of tea with their mum.

But it's a question that tests how the people running the country see the coming weeks and months.

At the moment, caution is the watchword in government.

Boris Johnson is desperate to ensure that this lockdown is the last but uncertainty runs through their calculations.

Right now, ministers can't offer simple answers to questions that this time last year would have sounded absurd.

Speaking at the Downing Street coronavirus press conference, the prime minister said there was "not an awful long" time between now and his Covid-recovery "road map" being delivered on 22 February.

"I hope we will be able to get some more clarity by then.

"I understand why people want to make plans now, but we are just going to have to be a little more patient."

Holidays abroad and in the UK restarted last summer, after the first lockdown ended.

For Labour, Sir Keir told the BBC it was "very difficult to predict" the situation the summer, but the government should "stop putting out mixed messages".

"The prime minister was saying one week that he's 'optimistic' about holidays, then he's got the transport secretary saying, 'Don't book a holiday.'

"That isn't helping businesses. It's not helping families."

The data organisation Statista found that in 2019 - before the pandemic struck - UK spending on trips abroad totalled £62.3bn.

And Visit Britain estimates that UK people who holidayed in England during that period spent £19.5bn.

The travel industry, which has been severely hit by coronavirus, reacted with dismay to Mr Shapps's comments.

Brian Strutton, general secretary of pilots' union Balpa, said: "Airlines are drowning but, rather than throwing us a life raft, the transport secretary has just thrown a bucket of cold water at us."

And EasyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren said airlines would be monitoring the effectiveness of vaccines against new variants of the virus.

"Most important now is that the government comes out with a plan on how they're going to unwind these restrictions," he told an online aviation conference.

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