Shipping: Quarantine

(asked on 10th February 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of excluding seafarers from the requirement to self-isolate when returning from travel to a country on the UK's travel ban list during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Robert Courts Portrait
Robert Courts
Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
This question was answered on 23rd February 2021

The UK Government’s border health measures are part of our strategy to tackle variants of concern, and to protect both the progress we have made in bringing cases down and the effectiveness of our vaccination programme.

Therefore, on top of the travel ban for all on non-residents coming from the 33 countries on the red list, all UK/Irish residents arriving from the 33 red-list countries must now quarantine in a government assigned hotel for 10 days from arrival, or longer if they test positive during their stay.

Since the start of the pandemic, the UK has provided exemptions for seafarers from the need to self-isolate where it has been safe to do so. However, there is currently not an exemption for seafarers who arrive in the UK having travelled through a ‘red list’ country in the proceeding 10 days.

There are limited exemptions to maximise the benefits of managed quarantine and the exemptions list will remain as tight as reasonably possible to maximise the public health benefits.

Full details on quarantining can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-quarantine-when-you-arrive-in-england

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