Quarantine: Scientific Advice

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford [V]]

My right honourable friend the Home Secretary talked about a government plan because the sort of measures we are putting in place need not only support across government but collective agreement across government. The noble Lord is right that the quicker the testing can be done—testing is speeding up all the time—the better. He will also have seen over the past few months that certain sectors have been more able to go about their business than others, the difficult areas being industries such as hospitality. On air bridges, we are talking to countries across the world about just this—where we can perhaps pair with countries that have similar rates of infection.

[Baroness Doocey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, inbound tourism brings in £9 billion from July to September, but industry experts expect this to drop to £500 million because of the quarantine restrictions. This will cost the tourism industry £650 million a week. The Centre for Economics and Business Research says that more than 90% of Britain’s summer tourism trade will be obliterated. In that light, what specific support are the Government prepared to give to the sector?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford [V]]

The noble Baroness will know, if she listened to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary the other day, that she is in constant dialogue with the Transport Secretary and countries around the world, looking at innovative techniques for lifting restrictions and, as the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, mentioned, at air bridges and similar measures that could allow travel between countries.