Shapps left ‘isolated’ as air bridge plan fails to get off the ground
Transport Secretary loses quarantine battle, with No10 and ministries branding it ‘unworkable’
GRANT SHAPPS has been left isolated over his air bridge plan as No 10 and both Foreign and Home Office are said to have branded it “unworkable.”
The Transport Secretary’s announcement on Monday to create “air bridges” for countries with low coronavirus rates to bypass the proposed 14day quarantine was not authorised, according to one government source.
“It was just Grant freelancing,” the source said. “He has been against this whole [lockdown] thing from the getgo because he’s got the airlines on his back.
“Frankly, people in Government are quite annoyed with him because they just got the quarantine thing on to an even keel after a few wobbly weeks and then he throws a spanner in the works.”
The disclosures suggest the chances of Britain securing “air bridge” deals with other nations this summer are remote as a blanket quarantine is introduced for all international arrivals, including returning Britons.
Only freight drivers and a limited number of specialist jobs will be exempt.
Although the quarantine will be reviewed every three weeks, a Government source said: “Air bridges are much further down the line.”
Government sources yesterday refused to say whether Mr Shapp’s intervention had delayed publication of its travel plans, which had been expected to have been published last week.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, told LBC yesterday that the measures were still being developed in consultation with scientific advisers. “We are not in the position to say, ‘this is how it is going to work,’” she said.
It comes amid growing concern at the impact the potential loss of British tourists will have on countries whose economies particularly rely on holidaymakers.
Lord Marland, a former Tory party treasurer and chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment council, yesterday wrote to Boris Johnson urging him to rethink the plans due to the potential economic damage to tourist-reliant states in the Caribbean, the Pacific and Indian oceans.
It followed a virtual meeting on Monday of more than 100 senior Government ministers and tourism industry representatives from the Maldives, Malta, Cyprus, Australia, India, Sri Lanka, the Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
Lord Marland wrote: “I sincerely hope the UK Government will review the decision to introduce a 14-day quarantine measure that would be extremely detrimental, not only to the reopening of the UK tourism industry but to those countries which are heavily reliant on visitors from the UK.”
He welcomed the “air bridges” proposal, which, as The Daily Telegraph had reported, had found favour with European tourist destinations, including Greece, Spain, Italy and France.
However, government sources indicated the chances were slim, with Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s senior adviser, a driving force behind the quarantine plan.
“There is a battle between Dominic Cummings and Grant Shapps going on here,” said one source. “Grant Shapps is trying to protect what he can of the tourist and airline industries because he doesn’t want them to fail on his watch.”
Supporters of quarantine said the measure was essential to a strategy of preventing a second peak of the disease hitting the UK, once coronavirus transmission rates had been suppressed to a minimum.
“The FCO had to repatriate all those people and it was a nightmare, and if [infection rates rise] again you would have to do that all over again [if you had instituted air bridges],” said the source.
The Home Office “aren’t going to let it happen any time soon”, the source added, noting “Dom [Cummings] wants a relatively tough [quarantine], so I can’t see it happening.” Quarantine will mean all international travellers except those from the common travel area like Ireland, Guernsey and Jersey, will have to supply their contact and accommodation information and selfisolate for 14 days. They will also be strongly advised to download and use the NHS contact tracing app.