Grant Shapps has dropped his advice urging people not to book summer holidays abroad, as the government outlined plans to partially re-open the industry.

The transport secretary’s remarks came as ministers gave the green light for holidays abroad as early as 17 May, but made clear they will not officially confirm the date or the locations on the new “green list” for another two to three weeks.

Our Political Correspondent Ashley Cowburn reports:

Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said the government has not given enough detail about its traffic light travel system for it to be properly scrutinised by MPs.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, he said: “The problem that I have is that the system hasn’t been outlined in detail.

“The government has spoken about factors like vaccination rates, infection rates, the position with variants and also about the level of genomic sequencing – but I have no idea what the levels of each of those are, for the government to place countries into the green category, amber or red.

“And instead what we’ve had this week, once again, is this system being drip-fed into the media day by day.

“We then have it announced on a day when Parliament isn’t sitting, so we can’t go to the Commons and ask either the Home Secretary or the Transport Secretary to set out the details of this. That’s extremely frustrating.”

Mr Thomas-Symonds added that since the government introduced “a very limited form of hotel quarantine” on February 15, 150,000 people “have entered the country who are totally unaccounted for” according to “reports in the media”.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he was looking to “drive down the costs” of coronavirus tests required for international travel to resume.

“Costs are definitely a concern, it’s one of the factors this year, and we have to accept we’re still going through a global pandemic,” he told Sky News.

“And so we do have to be cautious and I’m afraid that does involve having to have some tests and the like.

“But, I am undertaking today to drive down the costs of those tests and looking at some innovative things we could do.

“For example, whether we can help provide the lateral flow test that people need to take before they depart the country that they are in to return to the UK.

“And also drive down the costs of the test when they get home if it’s in the green category, where it’s just a single test.”

By the time international travel will be allowed to rescue from 17 May at the earliest, all non-essential foreign trips will have been banned for 19 weeks.

Our Travel Correspondent Simon Calder has the answers to your key questions about how the new rules will work:

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said that the framework for resuming overseas leisure travel was a “cautious move” to prevent variants of concern entering the country.

He said the government will give more information on when foreign holidays could be allowed before 17 May, which is the earliest possible date in the road map for international travel to resume.

“What we’ve got today is a framework for doing that, so there’s a traffic light system you have been talking about – red, amber, green,” he told Sky News.

“And in the green category, we’ll try to make it as affordable as possible to travel.

“But taking an abundance of caution as we go, because we don’t want to throw away all the good work of these lockdowns and people coming forward for vaccines by picking up variants of concern or anything else.

“So it’s a cautious move but at least it provides that framework for people.”

Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye has criticised the government’s double testing requirement for returning travellers as making “no sense” and making foreign holidays this year “just something for the wealthy”.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, he said: “Why if you’re fully vaccinated, and you’re coming back from a low-risk country where there are no variants of concern, that the government in its own judgment has said, why do you still need to take a £150 PCR test after you have arrived?

“I think for most people that would make no sense, and this is where we need to make sure that travel is something anyone can do and is not just something for the wealthy.”

When asked how likely it is that the average family of four would be able to go on a foreign holiday this year, he said: “If you’re coming back from a green-list country and you have to spend £600 just on the PCR test just after you come back, I think that’s going to make it unaffordable for a lot of normal hard-working people.

“And it’s unnecessary. Why not allow them to have a lateral flow test and only take a PCR test if they test positive? That’s what we do in our healthcare system and in our schools, why not do it for people coming back from overseas as well?

“They’ve already taken a test before they got on the plane to demonstrate that they didn’t have Covid, why incur this additional cost as well? It will just feel like overkill for most people.

“I think it’s something which can be changed very quickly – the prime minister promised us cheap and quick testing, and that’s what we now need to see him deliver.”

Ministers have given the green light for holidays abroad as early as 17 May, but ignored industry pleas to make trips affordable by cutting the cost of Covid tests for travellers.

Plans drawn up by a taskforce under transport secretary Grant Shapps will use a traffic light system to divide destinations into green, amber and red zones based on infection risk, with even arrivals from the safest countries required to take a test before departure and a PCR test after arrival, at a cost of as much as £200.

Our Political Editor Andrew Woodcock has more details on this story:

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