Quarantine: travel firms demand 14-day self-isolation rule is overturned

As UK border staff prepare to impose the nation’s first blanket quarantine scheme, opposition is growing to the home secretary’s plan for 14 days of self-isolation for most arrivals.

Passengers at UK airports, ferry ports and international rail terminals will be required to go home or to another suitable address, and stay there for two weeks. The new law applies to returning British travellers as well as foreigners.

On Sky News, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, once again defended the policy, which comes into effect at midnight.

Mr Hancock said: “We are bringing in the quarantine policy again because as the number of new infections comes down, so the proportion of infections that come from abroad increases, simply because the number of infections domestically is coming right down.”

However, British Airways is understood to be mounting a legal challenge to what it calls an “irrational and disproportionate” measure.

BA will ask judges to overturn the quarantine regulations on the grounds that airlines were not properly consulted, and that the self-isolation measures are far harsher than those that apply to known carriers of Covid-19 already in the UK.

Other travel firms are considering seeking a judicial review of the new rules.

The chief executive of Loganair, Jonathan Hinkles, told BBC Radio 4. “At the right time, we would have supported [quarantine].

“The government put the country into lockdown on 23 March. Surely the right time to be looking at quarantine regulations was around that time?

“It’s emerged this week that the quarantine policy that’s coming into place from tomorrow has not gone through Sage, the government advisory committee.

“So it’s difficult to see how this does actually follow through [on] the science.”

The Labour Party, which has until now strongly backed the home secretary’s plan, is now calling for her to explain how quarantine will be lifted.

Priti Patel’s shadow counterpart, Nick Thomas-Symonds, has written to her to demand that travellers should be able to take a test for Covid-19 – and, if it is negative, avoid self-isolation.

The Independent has analysed the likely health effects of quarantine, and concluded that more British people will be infected with the coronavirus than if healthy UK travellers had been able to take holidays abroad in much lower-risk countries.

A valuable strategy for reducing the overall number of infections is to reduce the number of potential candidates in the UK.

The Home Office has been asked to identify flaws in that analysis.

Separately, the president of the Channel Tunnel operator, Getlink, has written to Boris Johnson expressing frustration over “limited consultation by the Home Office and departmental intransigence”.

Jacques Gounon said that the UK government is demanding a disproportionate amount of information from Getlink staff, creating “a situation that puts a serious risk on the efficiency of operations at the Channel Tunnel”.

The prime minister is reported to be keen to put so-called “air bridges” in place to neutralise the quarantine rules. These bilateral deals would allow British holidaymakers to travel abroad without needing to self-isolate for two weeks on return.

Mr Hancock appeared to confirm this by saying: “I really hope that people are going to be able to fly, to go on summer holiday, but we’ve got to take an approach that starts with caution.”

All four UK nations have now tabled the legislation. Scotland published its statutory legislation barely eight hours before the measure takes effect.