Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what criteria they used to determine which countries should be placed on the list of countries from which they have banned travel as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; what plans they have to add further countries to that list; and what steps they are taking to ensure that any arrivals from those countries who cannot be refused entry to the UK quarantine in hotels.

The decision to introduce travel bans is in direct response to new scientific and medical data, which represents an increased risk to UK public health and an increased risk of community transmission of the new COVID-19 variants identified in other countries. These are 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 imposing travel bans if the public health risk of people returning from a particular country without self-isolating becomes too high.

The introduction of additional measures including hotel quarantine will be an important measure in the Government’s border response. Plans are urgently in development and the Government will set out a detailed implementation plan in due course.