TRANSPORT SECRETARY Grant Shapps’ failure to give an accurate starting date for his own quarantine rule changes was described as a “complete shambles” by transport union TSSA today.

In an interview on Thursday night the minister said that 14-day quarantine measures affecting six additional countries would come into effect at midnight on Sunday — 20 hours later than was actually the case.

He corrected his mistake later that night via a tweet that has since been deleted, saying: “It’s Saturday at 4am, meaning that anyone returning on Sunday onwards will need to quarantine.”

From tomorrow France, Netherlands, Malta, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Aruba and Monaco have been removed from Britain’s “safe” travel corridor list.

Due to his blunder, travellers have mistakenly booked transport to arrive in Britain after the cut-off time.

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes said: “We understand that the government quarantine regime is in place to protect us from Covid-19.

“However, the way the policy has been adopted has at times been utterly shambolic and the government’s messaging leaves an awful lot to be desired.

“Most importantly, Chancellor Rushi Sunak’s ‘one-size-fits-all support’ policies for businesses and workers are causing great harm to our travel industry.

“Travel companies can’t go back to business as usual until the public are confident that they can take a holiday with absolute certainty that it won’t be disrupted by the need to quarantine.”

Mr Shapps said today that people having to quarantine after returning from countries not on the exemption list will not receive government financial assistance because they travelled “with their eyes open.”

Failure to stay in quarantine, by leaving home to go to work for example, could see travellers facing fines of £1,000.

Many travellers in the six additional countries have been frantically booking tickets back to Britain to avoid having to quarantine, despite the government urging them not to rush back.

A Department for Transport representative said on Friday: “During Mr Schapps’ recorded interview straight after the decision on France was taken he made a slight slip which may have confused people about timings.”

The minister said that the decision to add France to the quarantine list was made because there had been a 66 per cent increase in the number of positive tests there in the last week.

Labour shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said that the lack of an effective track, trace and isolate system to deal with the pandemic “made it more likely that we are reliant on the blunt tool of 14-day quarantine.”

Last month, Mr Shapps fell victim to his department’s policies. He and his family travelled to Ibiza and had to cut their holiday short after being caught out by Britain suddenly putting Spain on the quarantine list, after the government insisted it was safe to travel there.

Domestically, large swathes of northern England and Leicester will remain under tighter lockdowns for a third week as coronavirus infection rates continue to climb sharply in some areas.

The restrictions continue to affect residents in Greater Manchester, in Calderdale, Kirklees and Bradford in West Yorkshire, in  Leicester, and in Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Preston and Rossendale in east Lancashire.