Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the reasons are for Mauritius being placed on the UK's red list of countries for which hotel quarantine is required; and when a review of the countries placed on that red list is scheduled to take place.

The decision to place Mauritius on the red list on 9 January was in direct response to scientific and medical data, which represents an increased risk to UK public health and an increased risk of community transmission of COVID-19 variants of concern identified in other countries. These are intended to be temporary measures and the government keeps data for countries and territories under constant review.

The government has made it consistently clear that it will take decisive action to contain the virus, including adding further countries to the red list, or keeping countries on the red list, if the public health risk of people returning from a particular country without self-isolating becomes too high.