Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said “tens of thousands” of stranded British travellers would be flown home under a new partnership between the Government and airlines.

Speaking at the Downing Street press conference, he announced the arrangement between the government and airlines to help travellers that have been unable to return home.

The £75 million scheme will see airlines try and take British nationals home on commercial routes first and foremost, offering "little or no charge" for them to change their ticket where necessary.

If that is unavailable, then the government will charter flights.

He said earlier today: “I can today announce a new arrangement between the Government and airlines to fly home tens of thousands of stranded British travellers, where commercial flights are no longer possible.

“Partner airlines include British Airways, Virgin, easyJet, Jet2 and Titan and this list can be expanded.

“Under the arrangements that we are putting in place we will target flights from a range of priority countries, starting this week.”

The Foreign Secretary said that in countries where commercial flights are not available, the Government would provide the “necessary financial support for special charter flights to bring UK nationals back home”.

“Once special charter flights have been arranged, we will promote them through the Government’s travel advice and by the British embassy or High Commission in the relevant country.

“British travellers who want a seat on those flights will book and pay directly through a dedicated travel management company.

“We have designated £75 million to support those flights and the airlines in order to keep the costs down and affordable for those seeking to return to the UK.”

Mr Raab said priority would be given to the most vulnerable – including the elderly or those with pressing medical needs – and also to countries where there are large numbers of British tourists trying to return to the UK.

Mr Raab said an “unprecedented” number of British travellers were trying to return to the UK – which he estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands.

He said around 150,000 British nationals had been helped back from Spain, while 8,500 were brought back from Morocco and 5,000 from Cyprus.

“We’ve not faced challenges like this in getting people home from abroad on this scale in recent memory,” he added.

Also at Monday's daily press briefing, the government's chief scientific advisor, Sir Patrick Vallance, presented a range of statistics on the effects of strict government measures restricting freedom of movement.

This includes numbers that showed the number of people being admitted to hospital with coronavirus is going up “in a constant amount”.

Sir Patrick said: “The measures are in place, they are making a difference, they are decreasing the contact which is so important to spread the disease and we’re doing a good job at cutting that down.”

Looking at those who have been tested having come to hospital, he added: “What you can see is there’s been an increase in the number of cases since the middle of March through to today. We expect that measures that are in place that cause that social distancing, the stay at home message will be reducing the number of cases of transmission in the community and decreasing the number of cases overall.”

Sir Patrick said: “We would expect this, in turn, to decrease the number of people needing admission to hospital.”

He added: “This graph shows the total number of people admitted to hospital since the middle of March which is now 8,000 people with coronavirus – that’s gone up pretty much the same amount each day for the last few days.

“That shows that it’s going up not in an increasing amount but in a constant amount which may suggest that we’re already beginning to see some effect through.”

He also spoke about government measures, saying that it is premature to put an absolute time on when Government measures to tackle coronavirus can be eased.

Asked if the current restrictions imposed by the Government are working, he said: “It’s important that we do this now to get the numbers below NHS ICU (intensive care unit) capacity, that is the absolute priority at the moment.

“Once that is achieved, once we know that we’ve got this curve below the ICU capacity and stable, then of course it’s time to start asking the question which is being asked across the world at the moment – how do we release those measures and manage this going forward?

“So I think it’s premature to put a time, an absolute time on how long this goes on for. We need to do phase one and then we need to think about how we release these in the right way and at the right approach in order to be able to allow the curve to stay below the ICU capacity.”