Downing Street considers revising quarantine rules for summer holidays abroad after Tory rebellion among senior MPs

A passenger wearing a face mask at Heathrow Airport
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Downing Street aides are studying potential plans to ease blanket quarantine rules to allow summer holidays abroad amid a rebellion by senior MPs, the Standard has learned.

The Prime Minister’s chief strategy adviser, Sir Eddie Lister, is said to be sympathetic to calls to protect the aviation and tourism industries from the damage of a prolonged lockdown.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma defended the scheme during a round of morning media interviews but also stressed that it will be reviewed every three weeks and relaxed in the summer if safe to do so.

MPs believe there is a clear split in the Cabinet between ministers who back the quarantine moves, including the Home Secretary Priti Patel and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, and those who want exemptions including Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick.

Conservative MPs said the two-week quarantine requirement for returning travellers and holidaymakers announced by Ms Patel and due to come into force from June 8 was equivalent to hanging a “closed sign” over the UK.

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.”

Mr Davis said there was an overwhelming case for exemptions for countries that have low infection rates, including Greece which is opening up its mainland to tourists again.

“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,” he said.

“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.”

The number of MPs supporting an aviation and tourism group campaigning for help to the sectors swelled to around 50 this morning, suggesting increasing concern on the backbenches.

Not all, however, are publicly opposing an end to blanket quarantine.

Former transport minister Theresa Villiers told the Standard: “A more targeted approach to quarantine requirements would do far less damage to jobs in airlines and aviation. It would also keep alive the hope of a summer holiday abroad.”

She said countries like Germany and Denmark, where coronavirus cases are relatively low, should not mean quarantine. A better approach would be to have a list of exemptions or negotiate “air bridges” with countries to allow unimpeded two-way travel.

Mr Shapps spoke publicly of his hopes to establish air bridges but was shot down by No 10 days later. However, Sir Edward, one of the most senior figures in Downing Street, is said to have taken an interest in the idea and to be sympathetic.

A Downing Street official said the Government was strongly united about the need for quarantine at the moment, given the importance of not allowing the rate of reproduction of the virus to rise. However, changes were not being ruled out for the future. “Public health has to come first,” she said.

More than 200 travel and hospitality businesses today united in a campaign against a 14-day quarantine, including major London hotels, travel companies and restaurateurs.

In a letter to the Home Secretary, they branded the policy “unworkable” and called for air bridges.

George Morgan-Grenville, boss of tour operator Red Savannah, said: “This is not just a group of company bosses complaining, but employees from bottom to top calling for the quarantine plans to be quashed. The extent of their pain is deeply worrying for our economy and our country.”

A Government spokesperson said: “These cross Government public health measures are designed to keep the transmission rate down, stop new cases being brought in from abroad and help prevent a devastating second wave of coronavirus. All of our decisions have been based on the latest scientific evidence.

“The list of exemptions has been agreed by all Government departments in consultation with their stakeholders which will ensure critical supplies and services can continue and will be kept under review.

“People coming into the UK will be required to provide contact and travel information, including those who are exempt. We will set out further detail shortly including on how we will take action against those who flout the rules.”

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