Cabinet split over coronavirus hotel quarantine plans

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Boris Johnson today confirmed the Government is ‘definitely looking at’ quarantine hotels for UK arrivals to stop mutant Covid strains coming in from abroad – despite fears it will cause chaos and wreak havoc on the airline industry. 

The Prime Minister revealed the Government is ‘actively now working on’ the proposals, which would see thousands of people forced to stay in hotels for 10 days at their own expense. 

He warned there is a ‘theoretical risk of a new variant that is a vaccine-busting variant coming in’ and that action will be taken at the border to protect the nation’s vaccination drive.

The Cabinet has been wrangling for days over the shape of the new restrictions, amid fears all airport hotels could be full within 24 hours if it is applied to all arrivals.

Final decisions are due to be taken at a meeting of the powerful Covid O subcommittee tomorrow, with sources telling MailOnline that they are increasingly certain to impose the rules for all travellers, not just those from covonavirus hotspots. Crucially it is understood that Chancellor Rishi Sunak has signed up to the principle of a blanket system, while Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is resigned to the prospect. 

Health Secretary Matt Hancock, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Michael Gove have been pushing for tougher controls, and Mr Johnson appears to have swung behind them rather than a targeted approach. 

Mr Johnson is said to ‘have the bit between his teeth’ on the need for a blanket ban following a meeting with Ms Patel on Friday. 

However, there are concerns about logistical problems with just 10,000 hotel spaces at Heathrow. There are also questions over whether there will be exemptions for people such as elite footballers. 

One Whitehall source said: ‘You could get into bussing people to God know’s where. All this kind of stuff needs to be sorted out…

‘That’s the thing with these kind of policies, they look superficially absolutely brilliant then you get into the nitty gritty.’ 

Another government source suggested the move might mean there has to be a bailout for the aviation industry. ‘It will kill flying,’ they said. ‘It will be a major problem, another very big blow.’ 

Officials speculated that it could take some time to put the facilities in place to implement the policy and it ‘may be not practical to bring it in straight away’.   

Mr Johnson was asked this morning during a visit to a vaccination site at Barnet Football Club in north London if the Government is planning to introduce quarantine hotels. 

The PM replied: ‘We are definitely looking at [it]. 

‘But I have got to tell you at the moment the UK already has one of the tightest regimes in the world so don’t forget everybody when you come into the UK… you have to have a test 72 hours before you fly, you have to have a passenger locator form, the airline will kick you off if you don’t produce either of those… and then of course you have got to quarantine for 10 days or five days if you get another negative test.

‘But with this vaccination programme, we’ve done I think 6.3, 6.4 million people now in the UK as a whole.

‘We are on target just, just, we’re on target to hit our ambition of vaccinating everybody in those vulnerable groups by the middle of February.

‘It is an immense effort by the NHS. If we are going to make that effort, which we are, we want to make sure that we protect our population, protect this country against reinfection from abroad.

‘That idea of looking at hotels is certainly one thing that we’re actively now working on.’

Asked whether the policy would apply to all UK arrivals or just those from hotspot countries, Mr Johnson said: ‘We need a solution that gives us the maximum possible protection against reinfection from abroad because you can see the risk which is that we can do an amazing job of vaccinating the population, we have to realise there is at least the theoretical risk of a new variant that is a vaccine-busting variant coming in, we’ve got to be able to keep that under control.’

The roll-out of hotel quarantine could pose a logistical nightmare for the Government because of the limited number of rooms close to UK airports.

Government sources said there are about 10,000 rooms close to Heathrow Airport, roughly the same as the number of people arriving via the hub every day.

The introduction of hotel quarantine would likely see the number of arrivals plummet but there are still questions over how ministers would accommodate everyone.

One outcome could be travellers being bussed from a UK airport to another part of the country to complete their 10 day stay in quarantine. 

There is said to be growing support in the Cabinet for a blanket ban, with one source telling The Times: ‘The view at both the official and ministerial level is that there is no point doing it in half measures. You might as well do the blanket ban.’

One Cabinet source told MailOnline that the policy will be ‘worthless’ unless it applies to all arrivals.

The PM’s spokesman today refused to rule out extra support for the aviation industry to go alongside the move. 

He said: ‘You are aware of the support we have already given to the airlines industry given the impact the pandemic has had on them.

‘You have got what we have said previously and it is obviously something we will continue to look at as we move through this current phase of the pandemic.’

A meeting of the Government’s Covid-O committee will discuss the way forward tomorrow. 

Ministers will be presented with five options to choose from, according to Politico. 

One option will be a blanket ban on all flights to the UK, another is hotel quarantine, another is imposing travel bans on countries where new variants have been discovered, another is scrapping the test and release scheme and another is using GPS tracking of mobile phones to ensure people comply with quarantine rules. 

Hotel quarantine is viewed as the option most likely to be selected although there remain major questions over how such a scheme would work. 

For example, it is not yet clear who would pay for the cost of quarantine – the traveller or the Government. 

If it is the former the cost of coming to the UK will soar amid fears that any version of the policy will decimate the travel and aviation sectors. Talks between the Government and hotel chains are said to be ongoing.

It is now a week since ministers suspended the travel corridors scheme and imposed new rules on all arrivals to require them to have a negative test before travelling and to quarantine for 10 days.  

But Mr Johnson is facing increasing pressure to go further to prevent importing Covid variants and to give the vaccination programme time to reach the nation’s most vulnerable people.        

He has also been criticised over the Government’s approach to the border, with Labour’s shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds claiming yesterday that ministers had been ‘too slow’ to act throughout the pandemic. 

He said the current border system ‘isn’t effective’ as he called for the Government to roll-out a ‘comprehensive system and plan’ instead of ‘moving from one chaotic situation to another’.

The fact that the Covid-O committee is not meeting until tomorrow to discuss the matter is likely to lead to further questions over why ministers are delaying action.