The Prime Minister was pressed on the subject of travel during a campaign visit to Hartlepool on Monday, two weeks before the planned introduction of a new traffic lights scheme for foreign travel under the UK’s road map to end lockdown restrictions.
Mr Johnson said he did not want to see an “influx of disease” once international travel resumes, which is why the Government is being “as cautious as we can” with the road map.
“We do want to do some opening up on May 17 but I don’t think that the people of this country want to see an influx of disease from anywhere else,” the Prime Minister told reporters during a campaign visit to Hartlepool on Monday.
“I certainly don’t and we have got to be very, very tough, and we have got to be as cautious as we can, whilst we continue to open up.”
A small number of countries are expected to make it onto the “green list”, which will remove the need to quarantine on return to the UK although travellers will still be required to take a PCR test. The list is expected to be announced later this week and will be reviewed every three weeks.
A Government spokesman said: “We introduced robust border controls to stop coronavirus variants in their tracks and every essential check we’ve introduced for arrivals has strengthened our defences against new mutations.
“As the UK unlocks domestically and with many British families spread far and wide, we understand that people may need to travel abroad for all sorts of reasons.
“But we can only permit it if it is done safely, which is why the Global Travel Taskforce has produced the Traffic Light system allowing us to manage the risk from imported cases by varying restrictions depending on the risk of travel from a specific location.”