Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government on what basis they decided to exclude Portugal as an ‘air bridge’ country necessitating passengers to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in the UK from that country.

Decisions on the list of countries that are exempt from self-isolation requirements have been guided by the science.

The Joint Biosecurity Centre, in close consultation with Public Health England and the Chief Medical Officer, has developed an approach to assessing the public health risk associated with inbound travel from specific countries and territories. This categorisation has informed the government’s decisions about relaxation of border measures.

The categorisation has been informed by an estimate of the proportion of the population that is currently infectious in each country, virus incidence rates, trends in incidence and deaths, transmission status and international epidemic intelligence as well as information on a country’s testing capacity and an assessment of the quality of the data available.

The government will keep the requirements and exemptions set out in the regulations under review.