Children and fully vaccinated adults will not have to quarantine on their return to England from amber list countries from July 19.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps detailed his plans to MPs on Thursday to free up foreign holidays as coronavirus restrictions are eased.

He confirmed that holidaymakers from the UK who have received two jabs will no longer be required to self-isolate for 10 days on their return to England from destinations on the amber list.

People aged under 18 will also be exempted from the requirement and the guidance not to travel to countries on the amber list will be lifted from July 19, when the majority of restrictions are expected to be eased in England.

Mr Shapps told the House of Commons: "I can confirm today that from the 19th of July, UK residents who are fully vaccinated through the UK vaccine rollout will no longer have to self-isolate when they return to England.

"They'll still be required to take a test three days before returning, the pre-departure test, demonstrating they're negative before they travel, and a PCR test on or before day two, but they will no longer be required to take a day eight test.

"In essence, this means that for fully vaccinated travellers the requirements for green and amber list countries are the same.

"To be clear, a full vaccination means 14 days have passed since your final dose of the vaccine, and it's also important to note that health matters are devolved, so decision-making and implementation may differ across the UK administrations and we'll continue to work with the devolved administrations to ensure we achieve our shared objectives of safe, sustainable and robust return to international travel."

He said the changes would "prioritise those vaccinated in the United Kingdom", adding: "We want to welcome international visitors back to the UK and are working to extend our approach to vaccinated passengers from important markets and holiday destinations later this summer, such as the United States and the EU."

Mr Shapps said he would update MPs in "due course" about this.

The transport secretary added: "I don't underestimate for a second just how difficult the last 16 months have been for those who have not been able to travel to see their families, and the tourism and for the aviation sector itself, of course, and no minister, let alone transport secretary, would want to ever curtail freedom and ask people not to travel.

"But protecting public health has rightly been and will continue to be our overriding priority of this government, and that's why we introduced some of the toughest border measures in the world.

"But we are now, thanks to our brilliant vaccination programme, in a position where we can start to think about how we live with coronavirus while returning life to a sense of normality."