‘Time to drop quarantine rules to get tourists on the move’
MINISTERS want to relax quarantine plans for travel as soon as possible, it emerged last night.
The news came amid growing pressure from Tory MPs, airlines and tourism chiefs to ditch the proposed 14-day self-isolation rule for those arriving in the UK.
Officials are already exploring how so-called air bridges between the UK and countries which have suppressed the spread of the virus could kickstart the economy and allow people to enjoy a summer holiday.
Air bridges are agreements between individual countries that allow holidaymakers to travel quarantine-free.
The current quarantine plan, announced by Home Secretary Priti Patel, could be tweaked within weeks of being introduced on June 8.
But officials insist the measure is essential at the moment to prevent a second wave of cases.
The Government’s plan to force all international arrivals to self-isolate will be “severely damaging” and “kill off” the slight green shoots of recovery within the travel industry, firms told the Daily Express yesterday.
Kickstart
More than 200 travel and hospitality businesses have joined a campaign urging the Government to overturn its planned quarantine for all arrivals.
The group of major hotels, travel companies and restaurateurs claim the policy is “unworkable” and have endorsed a letter sent to the Home Secretary.
Downing Street confirmed officials are looking at air bridges in a bid to kickstart the economy and allow people to go on holiday.
A source close to Ms Patel told the Daily Express the quarantine measures could be tweaked as early as the end of June.
An official said: “We will keep reviewing the measures. After the first three weeks, we could tweak things and make some changes, and as we go through this we can relax the measures more, but only when the science says it is safe to do so.
“They will not be here forever. They are a temporary measure to prevent a second wave. If we are controlling the number of cases coming into the country, we can relax the measures here, we can get restaurants, bars, pubs open quicker.
“Any measures we can implement to get the economy going, we will consider, but not at the expense of public health.
“A second wave would be devastating to the economy.”
More people could be added to the exemptions list, which will initially cover a limited number of professions, by June 29, the Daily Express has learned. Among those on the more current list are critical infrastructure workers, road hauliers and essential healthcare workers.
Up to 50 Tory MPs are said to oppose plans to force all international arrivals to quarantine for 14 days.
Breathe
Former minister David Davis said: “This is a terrible symbol to the rest of the world. It tells them that while everyone else is coming out of lockdown, we are isolating and locking down further.
“Imagine you are a factory worker who cannot afford to come back from a fortnight’s holiday and then take another fortnight off work for quarantine. If that worker has already booked and paid for his family holiday, who will pay for the costs?
“It will end up being the poor guy who can’t afford to go.”
James Sunderland, the Tory MP for Bracknell, called for more testing of air passengers to allow people to travel and get “the economy to breathe again”.
He added: “If you are travelling from a country that has a much lower re-infection rate than the UK, or a
country that is relatively unaffected by Covid-19, we should be allowing these people in.
“Let’s have some testing at the airports as well.”
Seventy-five businesses signed the letter to Ms Patel last week, but it has now been endorsed by more than 200 as concern about the impact of the quarantine grows. Firms which support the campaign include London hotels the Ritz and the Dorchester, travel firms Kuoni and Inghams, and chef Jason Atherton.
George Morgan-Grenville, CEO of Savannah Group, who is leading the campaign, told the Daily Express: “It’s time to quash the quarantine.”
Some of the UK’s leading airlines, including British Airways, easyJet, Jet2 and Ryanair, have sent a list of 45 countries to the Department for Transport asking they are established as air bridge destinations.
Realistic
It includes holiday hot spots such as Spain, France, Greece, the US, Egypt and Hong Kong. Sonia Davies, chief executive of luxury travel company Scott Dunn, said the industry stood together in its view that the plans “are hard to police and enforce and are severely damaging to the whole travel sector – while we all want to ensure the safety of travellers, which remains as always a top priority, we also have to be realistic about their desire to travel”.
Phil Bloomfield, a spokesperson at Travelbag, said: “We’re starting to see some green shoots of recovery.
“This is the kind of thing you might have expected them to do right at the beginning of all of this.Why now?
“It doesn’t make any sense. It’s killing off these green shoots.”