the government has unveiled tough new
quarantine rules for anyone arriving in
england from outside the uk
including fines and the threat of jail
for people who flout the rules
the measures are designed to keep
coronavirus variants out of the country
all travellers are already required to
have a negative covet test before they
arrive
from monday all passengers will have to
self-isolate for 10 days and be tested
on day 2 and day 8. those arriving from
the 33 countries on the government's red
list
will be taken to a hotel where they have
to stay for 10 days
at a cost of 1 750 pounds
and if people violate the rules they
could face large fines
and potentially up to 10 years in prison
scotland has gone one step further
and confirmed that anyone returning from
abroad will have to enter
a quarantine hotel here's our transport
correspondent caroline davis
when liz matos travelled to portugal in
september when her father died
she didn't know she would be facing 10
days in a quarantine hotel
when she came back liz can't return
until her father's house is sold in late
february
which means she'll have to pay 1 750
pounds
to quarantine in a hotel it's
extortionate
i think it'd be really really depressing
on top of being quite miserable anyway
we're coming back
not from a nice holiday but from you
know
grieving for either a lost one or
ill families etc so i think
this needs to be considered in how they
treat people
today's announcement introduced further
restrictions on international travel
including higher fines and potential
prison sentences
i know that most people have been doing
their bit
making huge sacrifices as part of the
national effort
and these new enforcement powers will
make sure their hard work and sacrifice
isn't undermined by a small minority who
don't want to follow the rules
under the government's policy only those
arriving from countries on the uk's red
list
will need to quarantine in a hotel but
labour want the policy to apply to
arrivals from every country
he hasn't announced comprehensive
quarantine controls
at the borders so why then when over
half of countries where the south
african variant has been
identified why are half over half of
them not on the so-called
red list holidays are currently illegal
but it seems many of us are already
thinking about the summer sun
holiday firm tui say they've already had
nearly 3 million bookings for the summer
and many in the industry are already
viewing the season as vital for their
survival
many in the airline and airport industry
are worried the more restrictions that
are added on
they think it could take longer for
those to be removed particularly
in time for the summer we just don't
know where we're going to be
over the next few months it's just
rapidly changing um but what we do know
is this just huge amount of demand and
pencil demand for people to go away this
summer but the policy won't be the same
everywhere in the uk while england and
wales will only require arrivals from
banned countries to quarantine and
hotels
scotland will require all international
arrivals to do so
the uk government has only committed to
adopting
this for travels returning from red
list countries we know that is not
sufficient and we have
therefore gone further in northern
ireland discussions are still ongoing
the travel industry can't be ramped up
overnight it needs some warning about
when international travel might start
again
both it and potential passengers are
waiting to see where the summer travel
can go ahead well that's the big
question isn't it caroline i mean this
is all open-ended we don't know how long
it's going to last
so what could it mean for some holidays
it is open-ended we don't know when it's
going to finish um
the answer is we just don't know about
summer holidays yet and that's because
there are quite a few things to consider
so firstly let's look at the vaccine
program that's going relatively well in
the uk
but that's not the only thing that
matters the transport secretary has
previously mentioned that looking at
vaccination levels in
other countries that passengers in the
uk might want to travel to is also
important
and of course that's not in the uk's
control then you also have to think
about considerations for where new
variants might come from
when we've seen country bans we've not
just seen countries where the variants
have started being banned
we've also seen some hub countries where
people travel from those variant
countries
onto the uk being banned as well so for
example when the brazilian variant cap
and
flights from portugal were also banned
too so that's another complication
looking at countries but also looking at
the countries that fly into those
countries as well
uh it's a very uncertain picture for the
travel industry at the moment we heard
earlier today that travel company jet 2
have taken the decision to extend
suspension of flights and holidays
until the 14th of april the travel
industry in general are just desperate
to know
how we get out of this and when aren't
we all caroline thank you very much