Full list of England's 73 quarantine-free countries published for first time

3 July 2020, 15:14

Spain, Italy and France are among a list of countries which English travellers can visit without needing to quarantine, it has been announced.

From 10 July, unless they have visited or stopped in any other country or territory in the preceding 14 days, passengers arriving from the following countries and territories will not be required to self-isolate on arrival into England.

The measures do not yet stretch across all of the UK as an agreement has not yet been reached.

But the full announcement has not been greeted with full approval from the Scottish government.

A spokesperson said it was "disappointing" the Government announced the plan "before a four nations agreement has been reached".

The US, which is currently seeing a huge rise in the number of infections, is not among the list of countries people can visit without needing to self-isolate for two weeks.

Passengers will still be required to provide contact information on arrival in England.

The 14-day self-isolation policy for UK arrivals - bar a handful of exemptions - was introduced on June 8.

It was met with fierce criticism over the impact on the UK's travel, tourism and hospitality industries.

The UK Government was unable to convince the devolved administrations to sign off on the plan before it was made public.

Scotland's First Minster Nicola Sturgeon acknowledged there are "obvious practical reasons" for alignment on the issue but criticised the "shifting sands" of the UK policy.

She said: "When so much is at stake as it is right now, we can't allow ourselves to be dragged along in the wake of, to be quite frank about it, another government's shambolic decision process."

Wales' First Minister Mark Drakeford described dealing with the UK Government over the last few days as "an utterly shambolic experience".

He went on: "If ever there was an example of making an announcement first and then trying to work out what you meant by it - that is what we have seen since this announcement was first trailed in the press.

"And day after day we have attempted to get a sensible answer from the UK Government on how they intend to make these changes, which countries they intend to extend the arrangements to, and I just have to say it's been an impossible experience to follow."

Mr Shapps suggested in the Commons on Thursday that the announcement was delayed due to the Scottish Government.