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* Britain working on plans to ease travel
* Double-vaccinated could be spared travel red tape
* Travel sector demands easing of rules
(Adds details on travel industry)
By Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair Smout
LONDON, June 22 (Reuters) - Britain is working on easing
travel restrictions for the fully vaccinated to allow people to
enjoy a summer holiday on Europe's beaches but the plans are not
finalised yet, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Tuesday.
Currently British citizens are essentially prevented from
travelling to most countries - including those in the European
Union - as the quarantine and testing rules are so cumbersome
and expensive.
British tourists are the second biggest outbound holiday
spenders in Europe after Germans so their absence hurts the
economies of southern Europe while the British tourism sector is
reeling from a ruinous loss of income due to the restrictions.
Hancock told Sky News that the government did want to let
people have a family holiday abroad, but only when it was safe
to do so.
"The whole point of the vaccine programme is to be able to
remove restrictions, and for people to be able to be kept safe
by the vaccine, rather than by these rules," Hancock told LBC.
"So we are working on a plan for double vaccinated people,
using tests, to have that testing regime in place, instead of
having to have the quarantine, in some circumstances," he said.
Asked by Sky if vaccinated people would get their freedom
back by August and so enjoy a foreign holiday this year, Hancock
said he understood people wanted their freedoms back.
For months, British ministers have given a host of
contradictory signals about when and how travel rules will be
eased more than a year since the most onerous restrictions in
Britain's peacetime history were imposed to halt the virus.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that travellers
would face hassle and delays this year if they sought to go
abroad because the priority would be keeping the country safe.
Johnson, who was slow to impose an initial lockdown in 2020,
is wary of moving too fast to open up travel as the Delta
variant first detected in India spreads.
Britain has the seventh highest death toll from COVID-19
globally of nearly 128,000 deaths but has one of the fastest
vaccine rollouts in the world, with 80% of adults having
received a first COVID-19 vaccine dose and nearly 60% a second
shot.
HOLIDAY TIME?
Popular European holiday destinations for Britons, including
Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Greece, are currently rated
"amber", which require returning passengers to take three
expensive COVID-19 tests and isolate for 10 days on return.
But travel companies are desperate to avoid another summer
lost to COVID-19, and have demanded the government acts.
European Union countries have already agreed to an easing of
travel restrictions over summer that will allow fully vaccinated
tourists to avoid tests or quarantines and broaden the list of
EU regions from which it is safe to travel, but Britain has yet
to announce a similar scheme.
Britain's leading travel companies such as the British
Airways-owner IAG and easyJet have cut
thousands of jobs and raised billions of pounds to survive the
pandemic.
The Times newspaper reported that Britain would announce an
easing on Thursday to allow British holidaymakers who have had
both coronavirus jabs to enjoy more quarantine-free travel from
August.
It is unclear how children - who have not yet been offered a
vaccine in Britain - will travel. Hancock refused to give
details or a timeframe for an easing of restrictions but said he
was supportive of a change.
"It is absolutely something we're working on - it's
something I want to see," he said.
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair Smout; additional
reporting by Kate Holton
Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
