From today, the UK Government¡¯s much-criticised ¡®traffic light¡¯ system for international travel has been scrapped in favour of more simplified rules for entries into England, Scotland and Wales following more than 18 months of restrictions during the pandemic.

The system has been reduced to a red list and an ¡®everywhere else¡¯ list. Travellers from non-red-list countries who have had both doses of an approved vaccine are no longer required to take pre-departure or day eight Covid-19 tests or isolate on entry. They will still need to take a PCR test the day after arriving, but the Government has said it hopes to introduce cheaper lateral flow tests by the end of October. Those travelling from red-list countries and those who are not vaccinated are still required to take all three tests as well as quarantine for 10 days.

The move has been welcomed by the business travel industry, with many hailing it as a much-needed step towards giving corporates the confidence to allow employees to travel again.

Following confusion over which vaccines would be accepted for entry, the UK Government clarified that only those travellers who have had their jabs in the UK, Europe, USA, or overseas UK vaccine programme, as well as those who received the Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, or Janssen vaccine from a public health body in Australia, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Dominica, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, or the UAE would be accepted under the new rules.

The simplification of entry rules for the UK was followed shortly by the news that the US will lift a ban on non-citizens from the UK and EU starting in early November.

With the UK Government set to review the red list of countries by Thursday this week, the Sunday Telegraph has reported that the majority of nations currently on the list could be removed as the nation re-opens its economy.