Grant Shapps has confirmed the UK travel green list is set to expand.

A new traffic light system was brought in on Monday to allow some foreign travel to resume again after months of coronavirus lockdown.

People in England, Scotland and Wales are able to travel overseas on holiday to a limited number of destinations after restrictions were eased.

There are green, amber and red lists for international travel, but politicians have offered differing advice over where the public are permitted to travel abroad.

The green list consists of Portugal, Gibraltar, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, plus several small remote islands which are British Overseas Territories.

However, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei and the Faroe Islands have severely restricted entry criteria so it may be worth looking elsewhere.

No arrivals will be asked to quarantine when visiting green list countries.

Popular destinations including Spain, France, Italy and Greece currently remain on the amber list.

But the Transport Secretary’s comments mean UK holidaymakers could soon be able to travel to such destinations without the need to quarantine.

Mr Shapps appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme where he was asked if he was pushing for more countries to be given the green light.

He said: "Yeah of course. That list should expand.

"Of course, I expect the green list to expand, but we're doing this very cautiously.

"I don't think there's any reason not to expand the green list as we get other countries up to very high levels of vaccination."

"We are reviewing this all the time, every three weeks, the next review is in the first week of June and we'll have to see what happens."

Brits are currently being warned against travelling to amber destinations.

He added: "Our message is very straightforward, which is 'just a little bit of patience, everyone'.

"I know it's been an incredibly tough year and there are extreme circumstance where people will feel that it is the right thing to do - perhaps because they have a sick family member and some extreme situations where they'll travel in the orange category."

Travellers returning to Britain from an amber location must quarantine at home for 10 days and take a pre-departure test and two post-arrival tests.

“There’s a heck of a lot of hassle involved,” Mr Shapps told Sky News.

“It’s expensive.

“We’re not at the stage of saying to people, go to those places on holiday, in fact, please don’t.”

Asked why holidays were still being sold to countries on the amber list, Mr Shapps said the Government had moved away from a system where things were “banned and illegal” to a situation where people were expected to “apply a bit of common sense”.