Travel Restrictions: Portugal

(asked on 17th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he next plans to review (a) the red list of travel ban countries and (b) Portugal’s inclusion on that list.


Answered by
Robert Courts Portrait
Robert Courts
Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
This question was answered on 25th March 2021

The government announced on 15 March that Portugal (including Madeira and the Azores) and Mauritius would be removed from the red list and Ethiopia, Oman, Somalia and Qatar added to the red list, with the changes coming into force at 4am on 19 March. The decision to remove Portugal was made following a review of data and evidence that showed Portugal had put steps in place to mitigate the risk of variants of concern, including genomic surveillance, which indicates the risks of importing a variant of concern has reduced.

The decision to add or remove countries from the red list are made in direct response to scientific and medical data, which represents an increased risk to UK public health and an increased risk of community transmission of COVID-19 variants of concern identified in those countries. These are intended to be temporary measures and the government keeps data for countries and territories under regular review.

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