Hotel quarantine will cost £1,750
ARRIVING travellers put in quarantine hotels in England will be charged £1,750 for their stay, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced.
Passengers face fines of up to £10,000 for failing to quarantine and those who lie on their passenger locator forms face up to 10 years in jail. The Cabinet minister said the measures announced will need to be replaced to enable “safe and free international travel” in the future.
He told the Commons that 16 hotels have been contracted to provide 4,600 rooms for the hotel quarantine programme which begins on Monday.
UK nationals or residents returning to England from 33 “red list” countries will be required to spend 10 days in a Government-designated hotel. Anyone who attempts to conceal that they have been in one of those destinations in the 10 days before arrival faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years, Mr Hancock said.
He also confirmed the new “enhanced testing” regime for all international travellers, with two tests required during the quarantine process from Monday. Mr Hancock told the Commons: “People who flout
these rules are putting us all at risk. Passenger carriers will have a duty in law to make sure that passengers have signed up for these new arrangements before they travel, and will be fined if they don’t, and we will be putting in place tough fines for people who don’t comply.
“This includes a £1,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take a mandatory test, a £2,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take the second mandatory test, as well as automatically extending their quarantine period to 14 days, and a £5,000 fixed penalty notice – rising to £10,000 – for arrivals who fail to quarantine in a designated hotel.”
Asked when the new rules will be relaxed, he replied: “We want to exit from this into a system of safe international travel as soon as practicable and as soon as is safe.”
He said work is ongoing to assess the current vaccines against variants of the virus, adding: “If that isn’t forthcoming then we will need to vaccinate with a further booster jab in the autumn, which we’re working with the vaccine industry.
“These are the uncertainties within which we are operating and hence, for now, my judgment is the package we’ve announced today is the right one.”
Scotland confirmed it will require people arriving on all direct international flights to enter quarantine hotels. Scottish Transport Secretary Michael Matheson said England’s approach is “not sufficient and we have therefore gone further”.
Passengers required to stay in a quarantine hotel will need to reserve a room in advance through an online system.
A document leaked last week indicated that the Government expects around 1,425 arrivals a day to require a room.
The Government also said that, as of 9am yesterday, there had been a further 12,364 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.
A HACKER gained entry to a system controlling the water treatment plant of a US city and tried to taint the water supply with a caustic chemical, officials said.
The hacker who breached the system in the city of Oldsmar in Florida used a remote access programme shared by plant workers. The person briefly increased the amount of sodium hydroxide by a factor of 100 (from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million), Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.
Sodium hydroxide, also called lye, is used to treat water acidity, but the compound is also found in cleaning supplies such as soaps and drain cleaners. It can cause irritation, burns and other complications in larger quantities.
Fortunately, a supervisor saw the chemical being tampered with – as a computer mouse controlled by the intruder moved across the screen changing settings – and was able to intervene and immediately reverse it, Mr Gualtieri said.
Officials have since disabled the remote-access system, and said other safeguards were in place.
THIS week, Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, Baroness Harris, has stuck up for Hull’s fishing industry in Parliament after the Hull Lib Dems requested her support.
Baroness Harris questioned the Government in Parliament over how it can help protect Hull’s remaining fishing industry.
She asked a question on securing financial support for fishermen in Hull, at least until decent fishing treaties were struck, so the Kirkella could make a fair catch.
Disappointingly, the Government ignored this request for financial support for Hull completely.
There are around 100 local Hull-based jobs on the line. That is many families facing financial hardship now.
The Government have created a situation where Hull’s biggest fishing trawler doesn’t have sufficient fishing treaty access to go out and catch what can be up to 10 per cent of the cod and haddock in the fish and chip shops across the country.
Cod and haddock are not in British waters all year round and the Government haven’t delivered on their promise of delivering good fishing access rights and quotas for British fishermen.
While we were in the EU, we had good fishing treaties that meant fishermen from Hull on the Kirkella had stable and secure income, but the crew of the Kirkella don’t know what’s around the corner now.
This is yet another slap in the face from the Conservative Government to the people of Hull.
They are saying they just don’t care about people in Hull, because we don’t even get the respect of a proper response.
Make no mistake, this isn’t over. The Lib Dems in Hull have set up a petition calling on the Government to provide financial support to cover loss of earnings of Hull’s fishermen.
We will be taking the matter further to get a proper answer from the Conservative
Government.
Enough of this dither and delay.
Rhys Furley, Lib Dem campaigner in Sutton Ward.