Foreign Office relaxes advice for UK travellers to 51 destinations
The Foreign Office is lifting restrictive COVID travel advice for a further 51 countries and territories.
Destinations that are having the “all but essential travel” advice lifted today comprise of former amber list nations such as Jamaica and The Bahamas.
A second stage will see 42 ex-red list countries and territories having the advice removed on Monday, including South Africa, Mexico and the Seychelles (scroll down for the full list).
Live COVID updates from the UK and around the world
With the advice lifted, people will be able to get travel insurance again for those destinations as most insurers use it as a reference point to exclude cover.
The move comes two days after 32 countries and territories, including Fiji, Malaysia and Bangladesh, had the advice lifted as the government aims to simplify travel in the wake of the success of the vaccine rollout, better understanding of the virus and improved public health in those destinations.
The advice was initially put in place due to the COVID situation in those countries and territories and was focused on people departing from the UK.
On Monday, the traffic light system – related to inbound travel to the UK – was dropped in favour of just one red list.
The red list was then reduced to just seven countries on Thursday, with 47 destinations coming off the red list from Monday.
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‘We want to change travel tests by half term’
Countries and territories where ‘all but essential travel’ advice has been lifted today:
The Bahamas, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Jamaica, Martinique, Palau, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Western Sahara.
Countries and territories where ‘all but essential travel’ advice will be lifted on Monday:
Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Cape Verde, Chile, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guyana, Indonesia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Mozambique, Myanmar (Burma), Namibia, Nepal, Paraguay, Philippines, Reunion, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Suriname, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
French Polynesia was one of the countries to have its travel advice lifted on Wednesday
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: “These updates make travel abroad easier – boosting trade, tourism and reuniting friends and families.
“I am delighted that the safe reopening of travel allows people to exercise personal responsibility and visit more destinations across the globe.”
The government has said the advice will be reintroduced or not lifted in “exceptional circumstances”, such as if the local healthcare system is overloaded by a domestic COVID outbreak.
Some countries and territories will continue to carry the advice to not travel there apart from essential travel, but it will be because of other circumstances such as instability, not COVID.
The CARF regulation, which brings crypto under global tax reporting standards akin to traditional finance, marks a crucial turning point.
The nascent real-world tokenized assets track prices but do not provide investors the same legal rights as holding the underlying instruments.
Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.
Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.
MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.
Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.
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Rachel Reeves’s fiscal dilemma
In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.
“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.
“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.
“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”
Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.
The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.
It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.
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Why was the chancellor crying at PMQs?
Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.
Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”
In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.
“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”
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Reeves is ‘totally’ up for the job
Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.
“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.
“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”
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