Death knell for summer hols?

All UK arrivals ‘will have to pay for quarantine in hotel – including returning holidaymakers’

BRITISH holidaymakers returning home won’t escape an order to quarantine in airport hotels – signalling the death knell for summer getaways.

Ministers are finalising plans to force travellers to isolate for ten days as soon as they enter Britain, with details to be decided tomorrow.

Boris Johnson had wanted to exempt British residents and only target those arriving from places where new strains of the virus have been detected.

But Cabinet sources last night said they expect the Prime Minister to sign off on a comprehensive proposal – modelled on Australia – that will see all arrivals sent to airport hotels, regardless of their nationality and where they have come from.

It means people who live in Britain will face having to pay extra, on top of the cost of their trip, to spend their quarantine period in a hotel patrolled by security guards. Blasting the move, Paul Charles, chief executive of travel company The PC Agency, told the Mail: ‘This is destroying confidence among holidaymakers. People are not booking summer holidays because they don’t believe there is an end game which will see these blanket measures removed.

‘This is a sure-fire way of destroying Britain’s aviation and travel industries.’

It came as Matt Hancock ramped up the Cabinet war over border restrictions last night as he suggested a blanket ban on all arrivals may still be needed.

The Health Secretary warned it is ‘absolutely critical’ Britain is protected from new mutant strains of the virus that might not respond to the vaccine.

Mr Hancock, who is one of the ministers who has been pushing for stronger measures, yesterday said that all 77 cases of the South African coronavirus variant detected in the UK have been linked to travellers. A further nine cases of the Brazilian variant have also been picked up here but, again, none were linked to comvariant munity transmission. The Health Secretary said the new strains ‘I really worry about’ are the ones that have not yet been spotted, as he suggested measures targeted only at people arriving from specific areas would not be enough.

Asked whether there should be an absolute blanket ban on people coming into this country, Mr Hancock told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme: ‘We have got to have a precautionary principle. We’ve introduced pre-departure testing... but it is absolutely vital that we protect this country from a new that may not be as well dealt with by the vaccine. We cannot risk the progress that we’ve made.’

Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, he added: ‘The argument has changed and the conversation around borders has changed because of two things. One, the new variants and two, the success of the vaccine rollout programme, which means that we cannot put all of this progress at risk.’

Mr Hancock suggested that the public would not be issued with vaccine passports for use at home, but appeared to concede that they may be needed in future for overseas travel.

Meanwhile, Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy said yesterday that Labour had been ‘pushing the Government to take tougher measures at the border since last spring’. She told Marr: ‘Scientists tell us that there are a number of countries where these strains are emerging that just simply do not have the capacity to map what is happening.’

A poll of 1,109 adults by Opinium on behalf of campaign group One Rule For Them last night showed 79 per cent think there should have been stricter border controls far earlier. Ministers hope the new move will improve compliance with existing quarantine rules.

Israel is ‘closing the skies’ to prevent a fast-spreading or vaccine-resistant form of Covid entering the country. The measure was due to last until January 31, when its national lockdown is set to be eased.

‘Can’t risk progress we have made’