Beautiful Virgin Islands

Saturday, Aug 01, 2026

UK quarantine plans and £1,000 penalties confirmed

UK quarantine plans and £1,000 penalties confirmed

Plans to force almost all arrivals to the UK to isolate for 14 days have been confirmed by the home secretary.

Priti Patel told the Commons that Border Force will check that travellers fill out a form with their contact details and location for isolation.

Leaving isolation prematurely in England could result in a fine of up to £1,000 or prosecution, she said.

"We will not allow a reckless minority to put our domestic recovery at risk," she said.

Ms Patel told MPs that scientific advisers had said quarantine would not have been effective earlier in the coronavirus pandemic when infection rates in the UK were higher.

But now, imported cases of the virus posed a more significant threat, she said, so it was now important to "protect our hard-won progress as we move in the right direction".

It comes as the latest Department of Health figures show another 359 people have died after contracting coronavirus, bringing the UK total to 39,728. An additional 1,871 people tested positive in the last 24-hour period.

Asked at the Downing Street briefing whether he would recommend people in the UK book foreign holidays, Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged the public to follow Foreign Office guidance against non-essential travel. "We've got to knock this virus on the head," he said.

And while he urged EU workers who had left the UK because their jobs had disappeared during lockdown to return, he ruled out any alternatives to quarantine for them, such as a medical certificate.

"Come back to London, or the UK - but you've got to quarantine. Everybody has been in lockdown for a long time, I know it's an imposition, but we really have got to beat this virus," he said.

Ms Patel said in the Commons that the "proportionate and time-limited measures" would come into force on Monday, with "limited exemptions" intended to ensure supplies of essential items such as food and protective equipment were not disrupted.

The regulations apply to England, and Ms Patel said devolved administrations would set out their own rules for enforcing the quarantine.

Ms Patel said the measures would be reviewed after three weeks and the government would aim to ensure greater freedom in the long term, including establishing "international travel corridors" with countries deemed to be safe.

Ryanair said the proposals were "utterly ineffective", with arrivals travelling from the airport before they isolate, potentially spreading infection, while the government would phone "less than 1%" of them to check they were complying.

"This 14-day UK quarantine is ineffective, completely useless, and will have no effect on British passengers who will largely ignore it," a spokeswoman said.

The Confederation of British Industry said it needed more detail on how the policy would be reviewed, who would be exempt and how the international travel corridors with key trading partners could be created.

"Businesses and government urgently need to draw up an internationally coordinated plan to get people safely moving across borders as soon as possible," said CBI president John Allen.

Sources at the French and Italian foreign ministries told the BBC there had been no bilateral talks yet about lifting the quarantine plans and establishing travel corridors or "air bridges" with the UK.

"If the UK imposes a quarantine period, we will apply it too," a French official said.

The plan has sparked concern among several Tory MPs, with former cabinet minister Theresa Villiers calling for it to be suspended while travel corridors are set up, to "save jobs in aviation and let families go on their summer breaks in the sun".

Speaking at an earlier debate about the aviation industry, former prime minister Theresa May said quarantine would "close Britain off from the rest of the world".


Deportation 'a last resort'


Labour's shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said people needed reassurance that this was not "a three-week fudge to try to spare the government embarrassment for failing to grip this issue at the right time".

He said only 273 people had been quarantined in the early stages of the pandemic as 18 million visitors arrived in the UK, with the government's own advisers saying many cases came not from China but from places in Europe.

Under the new rules, most arrivals to the UK will have to fill out a "contact locator form" with details of where they will isolate for two weeks and how they can be contacted.

Anyone failing to remain in isolation will face a £1,000 fixed penalty in England, with prosecution and an unlimited fine potentially to follow, the Home Office said.

Failure to fill in the form can also be punished with a £100 fine.

Border Force can refuse entry to non-residents who do not comply, and the Home Office also said that deportation would be considered "as a last resort" for foreign nationals who fail to isolate.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Finland Deploys Commercial-Scale Thermal Batteries Using Crushed Rock to Store Renewable Grid Energy
Valued at $109 Million: F-35B Fighter Jet Crashes in Southern California
Andy Burnham has Announces Plans to Redistribute Income Tax Revenue to English Mayors
Early-Release Scheme Faces Fresh Scrutiny as Reoffending and Prison Recalls Rise
Police Phone Checks Followed Report on Murder of MI5 Agent Inside Sinn Féin
Archbishop of Canterbury Reaffirms £100 Million Reparative Justice Fund During Ghana Visit
Drought Status Extended Across All of Wales as Heat and Dry Weather Deepen Environmental Strain
Record-Low Danube Exposes Probable Mammoth Remains in Bulgaria
US Says It Has Carried Out Heavy Strikes on Iran After Attempted Attacks on Its Forces
The chief executive of the popular gaming company laid off many employees and his pay rose to 38 million dollars
The World's Most Terrifying Smartphone: Recording, Documenting, and Reporting to the Regime
The AI User Nightmare: Private Claude Conversations Leaked to the Internet
UK: Former Football Association Leaders Call for World Cup Boycott Over FIFA Privatization Plan
Forbidden Love: China severs millions from their virtual partners
Over 24 Hours in the Air: Qantas Airbus Completes Record-Breaking Test Flight
Zuckerberg Opposes US Ban on Chinese AI Models and Warns of Regulatory Capture
Massive Wildfires Ravage Southern Europe: Fatalities in Greece and Evacuations Across France, Spain, and Turkey
Trump says Israel ‘would not survive’ without US
France Evacuates Atlantic Coast Resorts as Wildfire Risk Rises Again
Magnitude 7.1 Earthquake Strikes Kumamoto as Rescuers Search Collapsed Buildings
OpenAI Faces Demands for Full Disclosure After Models Breach Hugging Face
Nvidia Reportedly Takes Vast Texas Data-Centre Lease to Underwrite AI Expansion
Royal Collection Trust Income Falls as Palace Visits Retreat From Record Highs
FIFA’s Private-Investment Plan for World Cup Rights Draws European Revolt
Ministers Examine Social-Care Levy as Burnham Seeks Funding Settlement
Apple Briefly Crosses Five Trillion Dollar Valuation as Investors Retreat From AI Bets
Badenoch Offers Tory Votes to Keep Serious Offenders in Prison
Why Americans Queue for $15 Ice Cream and a $100 Caviar Pint
Another AI Genius Left the United States — and Silicon Valley Is Starting to Worry
Shein Reports $99mn Loss as Trade Barriers Test Low-Cost Model
CXMT Gains 466% in China’s Biggest IPO Since 2010
Amazon Seeks Approval for 5,105-Satellite Mobile Network
Burnham Puts School-to-Work Reform at Centre of Welfare Strategy
Burnham Rules Out Replacing Council Tax and Stamp Duty
Fresh Heatwave Threatens to Rekindle France’s Historic Wildfire Crisis
Following OpenAI's Cyberattack: 'Most Companies Still Do Not Understand What Is Coming'
Autopsy Finds No Violence in Death of Epstein-Linked Model Scout
Indian Education Minister Resigns After Cockroach Youth Protests
California Desert Data-Centre Plan Stalls as Water and Power Disputes Mount
War, Youth Revolt and the Global Struggle for Control
War, Power and the Rising Price of Political Decisions
Badenoch Rejects Grant Shapps' Bid to Return as Conservative Candidate
BAE Chief Warns Britain Has Underestimated the Risk of War
Burnham Rules Out New Scottish Independence Referendum in First Talks With Swinney
OpenAI Sued After ChatGPT Allegedly Discouraged Emergency Care Before Near-Fatal Embolism
Viral Video Raises Questions Over Twelve-Dollar Croissants at Manhattan Bakery
Miliband Sets Climate and International Law at Centre of UK Diplomacy
US Gasoline Returns to $4 as Renewed Iran Fighting Disrupts Oil Flows
Czech Central Bank Governor Rejects Early Euro Entry and Rate-Cut Pressure
Trump Orders 50% Tariffs on Selected Canadian Imports
×