Air bridges allowing tourists to travel to France, Italy and other countries were confirmed late last night.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office will today set out exemptions from a number of countries from its ‘all but essential’ travel guidance from July 4.
However the measures exempting travellers from quarantine will not be in force until July 10.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, pictured, will announce a list of countries that English people will be able to fly to on July 10 without having to go into quarantine upon their return
Airlines and travel companies have been calling for the government to allow them to try and save part of the 2020 summer holiday season
The majority of passengers will still have to provide contact details when they arrive in England.
Those who have been through countries still on the quarantine list in the past 14 days will still have to self-isolate for two weeks.
The changes will be announced by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps today following a risk assessment by the Joint Biosecurity Centre, in close consultation with Public Health England and the Chief Medical Officer.
However, the Government said it ‘expects’ that countries on the list will reciprocate, but provided no guarantee of this.
The list will be published today and will be kept under review in case of spikes of the disease in other countries.
The FCO has updated its travel advice so that certain destinations that pose a low risk are no longer on its list banning ‘all but essential travel’ to them.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: ‘Today marks the next step in carefully reopening our great nation. Whether you are a holidaymaker ready to travel abroad or a business eager to open your doors again, this is good news for British people and great news for British businesses.
‘The entire nation has worked tirelessly to get to this stage, therefore safety must remain our watch word and we will not hesitate to move quickly to protect ourselves if infection rates rise in countries we are reconnecting with.’ The late announcement came after a day of shambles, the list of nations to which travel will be allowed from Monday without Britons having to quarantine here on their return was repeatedly chopped and changed.
Greece is thought to have fallen off it last night despite previous pledges it would be included.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also refused to sign up to the plan, meaning the lifting of quarantine measures will apply only to English ports and airports.
The decision to press ahead without the rest of the UK raises the prospect that Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon could follow through on her threat to impose quarantines on people arriving from England.
And last night it emerged that just three people have been fined since the controversial quarantine policy – blamed for crippling hopes of a tourism revival – was brought in last month.
Ministers agreed a new ‘traffic light’ system last week that would pave the way for the creation of so-called ‘international travel corridors’ designed to allow travellers to visit certain countries this summer without the need to quarantine at either end.
Ministers had originally planned to negotiate bilateral ‘air bridges’ with a limited number of countries. Under pressure from the travel industry and fears of legal action, this was then widened to a larger group of almost 80 destinations.
At one point yesterday, ministers were ready to lift quarantine against countries deemed safe even if they were imposing quarantine on UK arrivals.
But amid frantic wrangling, they decided this would be politically untenable. The chaos sparked a blame game between London and Edinburgh, with Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg accusing Miss Sturgeon of acting like Donald Trump wanting to ‘build a wall’ after she refused to rule out 14-day quarantines on arrivals from England.
Ministers have spent days trying to agree a UK-wide approach. Privately they accuse Miss Sturgeon of playing politics with the issue in order to fuel nationalist sentiment north of the border.
But a Scottish government source said ministers at Westminster had changed the policy three times in 24 hours, making it impossible for them to sign up. Scotland’s justice secretary Humza Yousaf said the number of countries proposed by the UK Government had jumped from 42 to 73 during Wednesday.
He said the original list had 15 countries with a ‘green’ risk rating and 27 with an ‘amber’ rating – but 30 minutes before the 6pm meeting they were shown a list of 40 green and 33 amber nations.
The row came as travel agents started abandoning plans to sell holidays this summer due to the uncertainty around air bridges.
Lee Hunt, 42, owner of Deben Travel in Woodbridge, Suffolk, said: ‘If customers are paying, we need to guarantee them they are getting everything they pay for. We can’t do this at the moment.’ Chris Scoble, 54, of Go Scoble in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, said: ‘I think we have been put right at the back of the queue, despite being such a large part of this country’s economy.’