Hotel Quarantine for Travellers

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to implement a mandatory hotel quarantine for all travellers arriving in the United Kingdom.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, these new measures at the border are a necessary step to protect the public and our world-class vaccination programme. Every layer of protection we have put in place will help reduce the risk of transmission of the virus and prevent any potential new strain entering the UK. All measures will be kept under review and, if required, further action will be taken to add another layer of protection against transmission.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, given the good news on vaccines, should we not be ever more vigilant on our borders? The 22 December meeting of SAGE identified the rapid spread of a variant in South Africa, and the NERVTAG meeting of 13 January warned of the rapid growth of variant B1351 in South Africa and called for enhanced border measures. Since then, how many people have entered the UK from South Africa? Why, as Yvette Cooper said yesterday, is it still possible for people to return home to the UK from South Africa and go straight into the community with no tests on arrival, no quarantine hotels and no quarantine taxis? Scotland has announced extensive new quarantine rules today. When will the Government get a grip and bring in the much tougher quarantine measures they should have introduced weeks ago?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord. He is right that additional vigilance is required. The advent of new variants that could have higher transmissibility or escape the vaccine is a complete game-changer, and that is why we have changed our approach to border management. We have upgraded our border control measures, and there will be further government announcements on that. We have introduced red lists of countries where there are variants of concern, and we have implemented Project Eagle, the tracing project to track down those who have tested positive in genomic sequencing for variants of concern.