A glimmer of hope for your foreign holiday: Ministers draw up plans for free movement between low-risk countries… but you will still have to quarantine for 14 days when you return amid report lorry drivers will be main exemption from the rule
- The proposals would allow passengers to travel without pre-flight health checks or going in to quarantine upon arrival
- Free movement is being discussed by the Department for Transport after airline bosses warned strict quarantine will kill off the aviation and tourism industries
- The tourism industry wants the Government to focus instead on measures which could see flights resume within weeks
Britons desperate for a holiday were offered a glimmer of hope yesterday after it emerged ministers were drawing up plans for free movement between low-risk countries.
The proposal would allow passengers to travel without pre-flight health checks or going in to quarantine upon arrival.
Free movement would be limited to countries with low infection rates and flights from high-risk areas such as Spain and New York could be blocked.
However, lorry drivers are expected to make up the bulk of people exempted from quarantine rules, in a blow to the tourism industry.
Ministers will meet today to agree what one called ‘a very tight set of exemptions’, after they were scaled back ‘considerably’ on the advice of government science advisers.
Free movement is being discussed by the Department for Transport after airline and airport bosses warned strict quarantine requirements will kill off the aviation and tourism industries
Lorry drivers are expected to make up the bulk of people exempted from quarantine rules when travelling to other countries (stock photo)
It is understood that hauliers will make up two thirds of those not required to self-isolate for two weeks.
The remaining exemptions will be agreed at a cabinet committee chaired by Michael Gove.
They are expected to include people who ‘work supporting national security or critical infrastructure and to meet the UK’s international obligations’, officials said.
Scientists researching coronavirus may also be exempt.
However, there are hopes that some airport passengers may be included in the exemptions.
The idea is being discussed by the Department for Transport after airline and airport bosses warned strict quarantine requirements will kill off the aviation and tourism industries.
Industry leaders hope the scheme will come into force in a month.
John Holland-Kaye, the boss of Heathrow, told Sky News yesterday: ‘If two countries are at very low risk of having transmission within each country, there should be a free flow of passengers.
‘But if a country has very high risk with rising infection rates and poor controls, then there would be very tight controls on anyone accessing the UK from those markets.
That is the kind of thing we should be thinking about for the next phase, in a month or so.’
The Government is planning to quarantine all passengers arriving in the UK for 14 days later this month.
It has enraged industry leaders who said they were not consulted. They also raised doubts over its effectiveness.
The industry wants the Government to focus instead on measures which could see flights resume within weeks.
The tourism industry wants the Government to focus instead on measures which could see flights resume within weeks
This includes proposals for an internationally-agreed standard of biosecurity checks, as well as free travel corridors.
Mr Holland-Kaye said passenger numbers have fallen by 97 per cent, from 250,000 a day to around 5,000.
It comes after politicians in Greece, Cyprus and Italy appeared to soften their warnings against summer travel.
Italy plans to abolish travel restrictions in just over two weeks after leaders admitted the battered economy cannot be put on hold for a vaccine.
The country has the second highest virus death toll in Europe after the UK.