Our guide to the rule changes as Freedom Day finally beckons

Time for the bar! From table service to working from home, our guide to the rule changes as Freedom Day finally beckons

Pubs and restaurants 

Hospitality venues in England will no longer be required to collect track and trace data from July 19. 

Businesses won’t have to ask customers to scan a QR code using the NHS phone app on entry or to hand over their contact details, although they will have the option of continuing to do so if they wish. 

Mandatory table service rules will also be scrapped, meaning drinkers will be able to order at the bar again in pubs.

Businesses won’t have to ask customers to scan a QR code using the NHS phone app on entry or to hand over their contact details. A customer is seen enjoying a pint after lockdown first eased

Masks

Wearing masks will become voluntary everywhere apart from hospitals and other health facilities from July 19 in England. Public transport passengers, shoppers and those visiting pubs, restaurants, cinemas and theatres will no longer be required by law to cover up. 

However, people may still be encouraged to wear masks in some enclosed places where they come into close contact with each other, for example on London Tube trains.

Public transport passengers, shoppers and those visiting pubs, restaurants, cinemas and theatres will no longer be required by law to cover up

Holidays

Double-jabbed Britons will be allowed to enjoy a foreign break without having to isolate when they return to England. People who have had both vaccine doses will no longer have to quarantine for ten days after visiting amber list countries, such as Spain, France and Greece. 

It is possible the change to the travel rules will come into force on July 19, but Government sources last night cautioned that this date is seen as ‘ambitious’.

Test and trace

People in England who have received both coronavirus vaccine doses will no longer have to isolate at home for ten days if they have come into contact with someone who tests positive. 

They will be offered lateral flow tests to do themselves at home instead, although these will not be compulsory. The change could come into force on July 19, although the date has not yet been finalised.

Schools

The bubbles system that has seen whole classes or year groups sent home if just one pupil tests positive for coronavirus will be scrapped in England. 

Ministers are planning to announce a new way of handling outbreaks ready for the new school year in September. Instead of sending children home en masse, those who have come into contact with a positive case are likely to be given daily tests.

Work from home

The official guidance telling people to ‘work from home if you can’ will be scrapped on July 19 in England. But it will be left up to employers and their staff to decide whether they have to go back to their desks. 

Ministers will not launch a campaign encouraging staff back to the office and are resigned to there not being a mass return to workplaces this summer.


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