UK transport secretary Grant Shapps told LBC Radio on Friday that he will shortly be making an announcement about reducing the 14-day quarantine period for travellers arriving in the UK.
Shapps co-chairs the UK government's global travel taskforce with health secretary Matt Hancock. Speaking also to Sky News on Friday, Shapps reiterated that "we're actively working" on reducing quarantine and self-isolation periods. It is understood that the taskforce is recommending a five-day period of quarantine following return from virus risk countries. Travellers would then be tested. If the test is negative, the quarantine would be lifted two days later.
Travellers would have to pay for these tests, with the anticipation of tests with rapid results soon being available for little more than five pounds.
It is believed that this new testing regime may be introduced at the start of December and coincide with what Boris Johnson has said will be the end of the lockdown in England. If so, it raises the possibility - as Shapps has suggested - of more Britons being able to go on foreign holiday at Christmas, and this could of course be good news for those who wish to come to Mallorca over the festive period.