UK Government scraps ‘Amber Watchlist’ idea amid heavy criticism

UK Government scraps ‘Amber Watchlist’ idea amid heavy criticism.

UK Government Ministers had been considering the new amber watchlist category for nations at risk of being moved into the red group under the traffic light system. However, following a backlash by Tory MPs, ministerial concerns and complaints from the travel industry, government sources confirmed there would be “no amber watchlist”.

On Monday, August 2,  Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the approach to travel needed to be “as simple as we can possibly make it”.

“On travel, we have had to balance it because of the anxiety that I think a lot of people have – I have – about importing new variants, bringing back the disease.

“We also have to recognise that people want, badly, to go on their summer holidays, we need to get the travel industry moving again, we need to get our city centres open again and so we want an approach that is as simple as we can possibly make it,” he told reporters at Airbus in Stevenage.

Chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, Paul Charles, was against the idea of the “amber watchlist”.

“There’s no need for an amber watchlist, which would complicate the traffic light system even more. Just create a simple go and no-go list, as Americans have, enabling the fully-jabbed to travel at will. It’s not rocket science,” he tweeted.

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