Transport Secretary Grant Shapps will write to the Joint Biosecurity Centre to ask for the criteria used to determine how and why countries are graded under the traffic light system to be made available.

He told the Transport Select Committee that the JBC does not come under his remit, but he will suggest committee members are fully briefed.

Labour MP Ben Bradshaw told Mr Shapps: “We have tried to get this criteria and it hasn’t been made available and it’s not going to be made available, so the industry is very frustrated. Decisions seem to be made with no logic, with no justification and also being made overnight.”

Mr Shapps replied: “The criteria is openly published on gov.uk. It’s not not available.

But Huw Merriman, Chairman of the Transport Select Committee, told Mr Shapps: “I wrote to the JBC on 3 August, asking for a reply by 17 August to better inform us as to why France had moved to amber plus, whereas Spain hadn’t. We had no response at all.  We can’t find any detail. We can’t find any information.”

Mr Shapps said: “They don’t come under my remit. I will very happily write to them and say that in my view they should share that information with a committee of Parliament, for certain.”