Boost for UK holidays as MPs and travel chiefs urge Gov to scrap plan for 14-day quarantine

40 MPs including seven former ministers have joined tourism chiefs calling on the Government to abandon its 14-day travel quarantine plan in time the summer holidays.

From June 8, anyone arriving in the UK faces a £1,000 fine if they do not self-isolate for two weeks — including holidaymaking Brits coming back to the country.

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But there is ope for the nation's holidays once again after growing pressure to ditch the plan - with 40 MPs, including some former ministers, calling for an urgent rethink.

Airline groups have warned it will further squeeze them are months of planes being near-empty and routes cancelled.

And other European nations have warned that the moves will hamper plans for Brits to go abroad and for their citizens to visit the UK too this summer.

The Future of Aviation Group warns that unless the Government changes tack, millions of jobs in the travel industry will be at risk and Brits will be needlessly denied the chance to go on holiday.

Group chairman, Tory MP Henry Smith, told the Daily Mail: “The Government should abandon quarantine as soon as possible.

“If we were ever going to have a blanket quarantine policy, it should have come in two or three months ago – we should be coming out of it now, not going into it.”

Ministers say that it would not have made a difference to the nation's infection rate to bring it in before, or would only have slowed it down a small amount.

But now they say there is a risk of the virus being able to come back into the country once our own rates have fallen.

Meanwhile some of the biggest names in the travel and tourist industry have written to Home Secretary Priti Patel urging her to ditch the "unworkable, ill thought out and damaging" quarantine.

The owners of The Ritz, The Savoy, The Goring, Claridge's and The Dorchester have all teamed up to demand action.

Others to sign include Sir Rocco Forte, chief executive of Rocco Forte Hotels, and tour operator Red Savannah.

The 78 signatories say quarantine is the “very last thing” the industry needs as Britain eases out of lockdown and the economy re-starts.

The letter says: "The people of this country do not wish to be prevented from travelling.

"The government itself has urged people to use their common sense in terms of their behaviour. Quite simply, it is time to switch the emphasis from protection to economic recovery, before it is too late."

They warn the economic outlook is already “grim” and the quarantine will cause serious further damage to an already badly hit sector.

The travel industry chiefs point out that the sector employs four million people, 11 per cent of the country’s entire workforce, and accounts for nine per cent of UK GDP.

George Morgan-Grenville, chief executive of tour operator Red Savannah, said: “The quarantine plans are poorly thought-out, wholly detrimental to industry recovery and are more or less unworkable.

“Signatories to this letter are more used to competing ferociously but, on this issue, we are united.”

European leaders have reacted by calling for a "coordinated approach", while the travel industry have said the step would be "unenforceable" and "ineffective".

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme at the weekend, Raffaele Trombetta, the Italian ambassador to the UK, said: "There is always a large number of British tourists coming to Italy, it's one of Britain's preferred destinations.

"We had 40 million trips from the UK to Italy last year. We know how much they love Italy. We are still open, welcoming them.

"We believe that this is pandemic is a global problem so the best thing to do is to tackle it with a coordinated approach."

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When the quarantine comes into force, anyone entering the country will need to provide contact details of where they are staying, and anyone who refuses to quarantine will be fined or even face jail time.

Police will also be conducting checks to ensure people are quarantining and not leaving their residence for the two-week period.

For Brits living in the UK, they can quarantine at their own home, but will not be allowed to leave the house for two weeks.

Most people thinking of taking a two week holiday in Spain would therefore have to take another two weeks off to isolate afterwards, which is likely to put thousands of people off going away abroad at all.

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