People living in new Tier 4 areas of Covid restrictions will not be allowed to travel abroad from midnight on Saturday.
Areas of London and the South East of England which were already in Tier 3 will enter the new Tier 4 restrictions, which the prime minister said are “broadly equivalent” to the national restrictions in place for ‘lockdown 2.0’ which ran for four weeks from November 5.
Restrictions also include a closure of non-essential retail, meaning high street travel agencies in Tier 4 areas will not be permitted to open.
Boris Johnson announced the new level of restrictions this afternoon, noting that a new variant of the virus was up to 70% more transmissible, meaning it can spread more quickly.
There is no evidence it has a higher mortality rate than previous strains.
Other sectors affected by the restrictions include indoor gyms and leisure facilities and persona care facilities. People must work from home if they can though exemptions have been given to sectors like construction and manufacturing.
Johnson added: “People must not enter or leave Tier 4 areas and Tier 4 residents must not stay overnight away from home.”
Unlike lockdown 2.0, communal worship is permitted, under the restrictions, which will be reviewed on December 30.
“People should carefully consider whether they need to travel abroad and they should follow the rules in their tier,” said Johnson. “People in Tier 4 areas will not be permitted to travel abroad apart from limited exceptions such as work purposes.”
His announcement also included a tightening of Covid rules for the Christmas period. Tier 4 residents will be subject to a stay at home order and those in the rest of the country will be limited to two households mixing rather than three. This will only apply to Christmas Day, rather than five days as per the previous rules.
The introduction of the tighter restrictions reignited the debate over sector-specific financial support for businesses in the travel indutry. So far, Scotland is the only UK nation to provide sector-specific support to travel agents and tour operators.
An Abta spokesperson said: “Abta has always maintained that public health must, of course, come first. But it is clear that travel businesses will need additional support to get through the next few weeks.
“More than nine months into this crisis, official statistics from the ONS already show that travel is the hardest hit service sector in the UK economy, worse than hospitality and other areas. Tailored financial support for the travel industry is long overdue, and must be urgently addressed by the chancellor in the wake of this announcement.
“The Scottish Government has recognised this already, and promised funding from January. Other parts of the UK must follow suit without delay.”
Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of the Advantage Travel Partnership, said: “With non-essential retail shops in Tier 4 now being forced to close again under the new rules, this only further demonstrates that urgent support is needed for travel agents as recognised recently by the Scottish government on the back of lobbying by the SPAA. A targeted financial support package is desperately needed to save the travel industry, without which we will see more job losses and business failures.”
She added: “It is unclear from the rules what travel agents should be advising their customers who are due to travel.
“We’ve already seen some operators and airlines making cancellations from London airports who we understand are in Tier 4 on the back of the prime minister announcing that travel abroad will not be allowed. We don’t know if this means that all flights from London airports in Tier 4 will be cancelled or what position this leaves travellers in if their flight is still operating but they choose not to travel.
“As an industry we urgently need clarity on this, especially coming up to a period where many people were due to travel, both for holidays and to visit loved ones. Given that many people will be due to travel over the next few days from London airports, this new tier will cause absolute disarray for travellers and the industry which has already been decimated with nine months of hardship.”