From Bob Stewart MP fb page
The Home Secretary has announced that from 8 June travellers arriving in the UK will have to self-isolate for 14 days or risk being fined, prosecuted or deported if they do not. Apparently, travellers will be required to fill out an on-line form on the Government website up to 48 hours before then providing contact information and the address where they intend to self-isolate once they arrive in country.
I suppose the science behind this move is that people who have been infected with Coronavirus tend to develop the illness within 7 days and then in the main tend to be through it by the 14th day. Thus, the public will be protected from a second wave of the illness being brought in from abroad.
But I recall that when such a quarantine period was first mooted at the beginning of the Coronavirus crisis the Government rejected the idea because, it claimed, it would make little difference to the infection rate. So, really what has changed now?
Then I understand that other European countries which have imposed such quarantines have lifted them because they felt they didn’t work and were indeed counter-productive.
Under these new quarantine rules most people will be expected to fill out the form in advance but there will be an opportunity at the border to do so if they have not been able to use the internet. The Border Agency will expect airlines, ships and Eurostar to check whether people have filled out forms in advance but they will not be required to turn people away from travelling if that has not happened.
Travellers are urged to use cars or other forms of private transport to travel from the airport when they arrive in the UK but if they must use public transport, they are advised to take the most direct route possible to their accommodation and follow guidance such as wearing face coverings. British travellers can go straight home and self-isolate there. Anyone who cannot provide a suitable address will be provided accommodation by the Government. The Home Office said this will be at a hotel.
Friends and family will not need to isolate with the people who have arrived, unless they have also travelled. But they should avoid contact with anyone they are staying with and minimise time spent in shared areas and use separate bathrooms if possible.
People could be fined £100 for not filling out the form, multiplying up to a £3,200 maximum amount. Breaching the self-isolation stipulation would result in a £1,000 fine and could lead to prosecution and then the potential unlimited fine.
While officials expect the majority of people will comply, they have warned those who deliberately flout the rules could face prosecution.
Spot checks are set to be carried out by officials, like Border Force officers, as travellers arrive at airports and ports to make sure they have filled out the forms. The Government has also threatened to carry out spot checks around the country to make sure people are complying. In the first instance public health authorities, using private contractors, will phone people and question them to establish whether they are self-isolating.
The rules will be reviewed every three weeks, so are expected to be in place until at least 29 June.
On 22 May the Government published a paper called ‘The Coronavirus (COVID-19): Travellers exempt from UK border rules’. This includes a huge and quite complicated to understand register of people who are exempt from this compulsory self-isolation. I have had a good root through this rather baffling list. To be honest I have no idea who or what it meant for some categories of people. But I did recognise that Eurostar personnel, medical professionals of various types, aircrew, servicemen and women, emergency service workers, seamen and masters of ships, BBC employees (why only them?), diplomats, people who live in UK but go abroad to work (or vice versa) at least once a week, and prisoner escorts for goodness sake were exempt from this 14 day quarantine period. Oh yes and seasonal agricultural workers can arrive but they must self-isolate on the farms where they work!
In all that list and apart from seasonal workers, I found it difficult to find anyone who actually made money for the country by their activities in the UK. rather than took it. That worried me hugely. The message is rather that our country is closed for business. The French were certainly put off. I gather France has retaliated by making anyone arriving from Blighty spend two weeks in clink.
I am very concerned for those who work for large airlines like BA, Virgin Atlantic and EasyJet. Loads of my constituents do and many are threatened with redundancy before this regulation was announced. Airports like Heathrow and Gatwick are already ghost towns and goodness knows how many jobs have been lost in their ground organisations.
Of course, we have our own local London Airport at Biggin Hill. It is the premier business airport for London. A very old friend of mine (from 1970) runs Biggin Hill and he has told me that the quarantining of arrivals will decimate business there. It’s quite eye-opening to look at the high-powered people and personalities who fly into and out of our local very successful London airport. The place is crammed full with executive jets. Bernie Ecclestone, for instance, has a huge Formula 1 facility there and flights into and out of Biggin Hill are vital to the business. The airport is the favoured landing site for board members of huge international companies when they meet in London. From Biggin Hill it is only a short helicopter hop into Town. Fourteen days quarantine as a price for a visit to London by top international businessmen is likely to be a price just not worth paying.
By the way Biggin Hill Airport is also home to 13 Spitfires, a Hawker Hurricane and one ME 109 too (well worth a visit when normality returns). You can fly in a Spitfire from there! What a treat!
To my knowledge tourist destinations in Southern Europe in places like Spain, France, Italy, Croatia and Greece are hoping to salvage perhaps a portion of half a season this year. I note that a lot of European beaches have been re-organised along social distancing rules (see photo). Imagine what people depending on tourism there feel? At a swoop, assuming we can travel in a month or so, tourists from UK will just not appear. What Brit would be happy to take a week or so in the sun and then, as result, spend a further two weeks banged away at home rather than returning to work?
Making it more personal I have been contacted by several constituents who are outraged by this quarantine proposal. Their parents live abroad (Switzerland, Spain, France) and they simply will not be able to visit them without having severe restrictions placed on them when they return.
I really do not understand why this 14-day isolation measure is suddenly flavour of the month when it was conclusively rejected as pointless at the start of the crisis. Clearly this move would do huge damage to British jobs and businesses.
In conclusion, I guess, by now, anyone reading this will have the impression that I am less than convinced for the need of this new quarantine restriction. That is true. Actually I hope the whole idea is dropped by 8 June.