Ministers are to consider scrapping hotel quarantine, ending the requirement for travellers to pay ￡2,285 per person to self-isolate.

       Britain is one of only a handful of countries that still requires such stringent restrictions on movement, despite fewer than one in 100 (0.77 per cent) of people in hotel quarantine testing positive for Covid.

       Ministers had been due to consider the plan alongside slashing red list countries from 54 to just seven, but the paper setting out options including replacing hotel quarantine with self-isolation at home will now be considered by the Covid-O cabinet committee in two weeks.

       Nearly 200,000 people returning from red list countries have been forced to quarantine in hotels since it was introduced at the start of the year.

       It came as Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, admitted expensive PCR tests might not be scrapped in time for the start of the October half-term and advised families not to book their replacement cheaper lateral flow tests yet.

       Repeatedly questioned on the date, he said they would be “hopefully” in place “in time for people returning from half-term holidays potentially,” sparking fears that people may have to fly out of the UK before the policy is actually implemented.

       Mr Shapps would only say it would be “certainly by the end of October”.

       A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We are committed to protecting our country and the progress of our phenomenal vaccine rollout against the risk of new coronavirus variants.

       “We have taken decisive action at the border with our managed quarantine system and every essential check we’ve introduced has strengthened our defences.

       “We recently simplified the travel rules to make them easier to understand and follow, opening up tourism and reducing the costs to go abroad.”