Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, by what criteria countries are assigned to the red, amber and green lists for international travel.

Decisions on red, amber and green list countries are taken by Ministers, who take into account risk assessments produced by the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC), alongside wider public health factors. Risk assessments are based on factors such as the level of community transmission of variants of concern or variant under investigation, levels of testing, genomic sequencing and reporting. Details of the in-country and territory vaccination profile are included as contextual information in the assessment.

A summary of the JBC methodology has been published on GOV.UK, alongside key data that supports ministers’ decisions.