TRAVEL BAN BACKLASH
Chorus of rage and disbelief at quarantine that wipes out summer hols
MINISTERS were under mounting pressure last night to ditch tough new quarantine rules that will prevent Britons taking European holidays this summer.
Tourist hotspots including Italy, Spain and Greece plan to open their borders to visitors fully this summer. But under plans announced by Home Secretary Priti Patel on Friday, anyone arriving into the UK after June 8 – including returning holidaymakers – will have to self-isolate for 14 days or face fines of £1,000, making it impractical for most Britons to take a foreign break.
Last night the Government faced a chorus of protest from business leaders and former Tory and Labour Cabinet Ministers alike, urging a rethink because of the damage to the travel industry.
The Mail on Sunday understands that airlines have submitted papers to the Government warning that the quarantine will wreak painful economic damage on Britain and cause more job losses unless UK borders are opened to low-risk countries ‘no later than mid-June’.
John Holland-Kaye, chief executive of Heathrow, said the quarantine ‘would turn a health pandemic into an unemployment pandemic’.
Another travel chief executive told this newspaper the quarantine rules were ‘a nail in the coffin’ of his firm. ‘We have customers who want to get going and are willing to put up with temperature checks at airports, but quarantine is a gamechanger as no one will book anything,’ the travel boss said.
Kane Pirie, director of travel agent Vivid Travel, said: ‘The Government has let the whole travel industry descend into a lawless Wild West fiasco.’
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing growing cross-party fury at the quarantine rules.
Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, former Brexit Secretary David Davis and ex-Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett describe the
Government’s plan as ‘a devastating blow for anyone hoping to holiday abroad this summer, for the airline industry and for British international businesses’.
In their article on the facing page, they say: ‘If ever there was a right time for travel restrictions, it was at the beginning of the pandemic when it could have flattened the curve.’
The quarantine move has divided the Cabinet and angered senior Tory MPs. Sir Charles Walker, vice-chairman of the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers, said: ‘We need to get the country back on its feet again, generating wealth that can support families and our public health services.
‘A second-world economy does not fund first-world expectations.
We seem to be rushing headlong into a depression.’
Ms Patel’s move was opposed within the Cabinet by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Business Secretary Alok Sharma.
In its submission, Airlines UK, which represents British Airways, EasyJet, Ryanair and other major carriers, called on the Government to introduce so-called air bridges to destinations that meet a set of three key criteria.
They should have ‘no significant domestic restrictions’ in place, such as a ban on non- essential travel within the country; they must have implemented ‘ public health protocols’ such as testing in airports; and they should already have opened their borders to at least one other country. Once countries meet these three conditions, Airlines UK says, the Government should create a safe travel corridor, and change official advice to allow passengers to fly freely to and from that nation.
Ms Patel said the blanket quarantine rule will be reviewed every three weeks, but Airlines UK wants air bridges in place by mid-June, which would allow potential summer travel to popular destinations such as Spain, Italy and Greece.
Italy, which has just opened its beaches, has said it will fully reopen
its border to allow tourism on June 3, followed by Spain at the end of June and Greece on July 1.
Andrew Griffith, MP for Arundel and South Downs, said: ‘The UK should do everything possible not to isolate itself just as the rest of the world is reopening.’
Last year, revenue from tourism to the UK was £8.3 billion between June and August alone.
Jason Holt, chief executive for Western Europe of ground handling firm Swissport, said: ‘[Quarantine] is starving the industry of revenue when the sector is in crisis. The cost to our industry, tourism and the broader economy is huge.’
The timing of the new quarantine rules has also been called into question. Between January 1 and the end of March, 18 million people arrived in the UK.
Some estimates, say around 20,000 of them would likely have been infected with coronavirus, yet fewer than 300 were quarantined.
The arrivals were only asked to self-isolate if they were displaying symptoms. The Government has repeatedly said it acted on scientific advice that tougher restrictions would have had a ‘negligible’ impact given the domestic transmission rate at that time.