This week, I attended an event in Westminster organised by the travel industry which sought to highlight the economic impact that continued restrictions are having at all levels.

There I met David Carruthers, who runs Conexo Travel, an independent travel firm based in Haxby. Mr Carruthers explained that after a difficult year for his business, the crucial thing going forward is restoring the public’s confidence in foreign travel.

Confidence is starting to return, but it is fragile. At a time when you would expect the Government to be doing everything in its power to foster confidence, it seems to be undermining it at every turn.

Despite being one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, we appear to be intent on squandering this advantage and acting as if we were still at the peak of the pandemic. Whenever the scientific evidence suggests that restrictions can be safely eased, the goalposts are moved, with a succession of new variants being used to justify the continued state of alarm.

Lockdowns have had a hard impact on most sectors of the economy, but the travel sector has been left especially devastated. What makes things even worse though is the continued uncertainty that is preventing the sector from reopening.

Few would dispute the need for travel restrictions on countries where concerning new variants of the virus are spreading out of control. But the Government’s traffic light system goes far beyond this, imposing burdensome restrictions on many popular European destinations with lower Covid case rates than our own.

The Government assure us that the allocation of destinations is made according to a strict formula based on factors such as case and vaccination rates as well as variants of concern.

In Parliament, I have called for full transparency, so that the industry and holidaymakers can see for themselves the likelihood of any changes in allocation. In the absence of this, we are left wondering how exactly the Government arrives at their decisions and whether the evidence-based recommendations are subject to review at a political level. The implications of this uncertainty were borne out earlier this month with holidaymakers scrambling to return from Portugal after its abrupt change in status.

As Theresa May put it in the House of Commons just the other day, we are getting to the stage where the Government needs to decide if it wants a functioning travel industry in this country.

If it does want the industry to recover, it needs to help businesses plan ahead, as given the nature of foreign travel the rules applicable next year are at least as important as those applicable next week.

There have been encouraging reports in the national press that an announcement is imminent on scrapping quarantine rules for double vaccinated people returning from amber list countries, effective from August. This is welcome, but one wonders what has taken us so long given that this is established policy in countries with less successful vaccination campaigns like the US and France.

The Government must be bold and allow people to make the most of the change. Children going on family holidays should be covered by the status of their fully vaccinated parents for instance. In order to increase confidence to book, it should be introduced without delay - no later than the start of the school holidays in July. Delaying further into August risks making this another wasted summer for the travel industry and will exclude most young people from foreign holidays this year.

The addition of Malta, Madeira, the Balearic Islands and others to the green list is a step in the right direction. I would caution however that the use of the green watch list is far from ideal, and will fail to provide the confidence necessary for people to book, given that destinations can be moved back to amber at short notice.

The travel sector in this country is significant and diverse, from local travel agents in York to employees of regional airports just down the road at Leeds/Bradford. For them the recovery has to start now, they simply cannot afford to wait until all conceivable threats from Covid have passed. The Government needs to recognise this and do everything it can to instil confidence.

From providing a meaningful and stable choice of green list destinations, to bringing in vaccine passports for those on the amber list, the Government needs to get its act together and lead the way.