10,000 travellers a day from 'high-risk' nations 'set to avoid hotel quarantine'

Ten thousand travellers from "high-risk" countries are set to avoid the UK's hotel quarantine policy on its very first day, Labour claim.   Sir Keir Starmer has demanded a tougher border regime after presenting Labour analysis that shows the shortfalls of Boris Johnson's crackdown.  From Monday, Brits returning to England from 33 'red list' countries, where there are new variants of Covid-19, will have to pay £1,750 to quarantine for 10 days in a hotel.  But .   Only 4,600 hotel rooms have been contracted so far, despite Boris Johnson saying 20,000 people in total are arriving each day.  Labour say that, in the 18 days between hotel quarantine being announced and implemented, 22,000 passengers - 1,222 per day - have entered the UK from red list countries.  But 183,600 further passengers - 10,200 per day - have entered the UK from around 30 countries where Brazilian or South African variant cases have been confirmed, yet aren’t on the red list.  They include the US, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland and France.  Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for the requirements in England to match those planned for Scotland, which will require all international arrivals to self-isolate in hotels.  He also demand that the Government publishes daily data showing how many passengers are entering the UK from different countries.  He said: "The Government's failure to secure our borders risks jeopardising the fight against Covid-19.  "All the effort being put into the vaccine rollout across Britain could be undermined by a vaccine-resistant strain entering the country.  "The Government is leaving gaping holes in our defences against Covid variants, with the vast majority of arrivals from Monday set to avoid hotel quarantine.  "The Prime Minister must listen to Labour and ensure all international arrivals are quarantined in hotels and the aviation sector is supported while that happens.  "He should also come clean on the numbers of people arriving from different countries by publishing daily arrivals data."  Cambridge professor Ravi Gupta, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) suggested that a blanket policy in relation to travel restrictions would be better.  He told Times Radio: "We learned from the early days of this pandemic that having red listed countries wasn't helpful because the spread was far more extensive than we realised.  "And so the better option probably would be to remove the red list countries and just have the same regulations for all incoming visitors, rather like other countries have done."  He added: "I think we have learned that when we tried to do that sort of balancing act that things tend to go the wrong way."  Meanwhile, shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon has written to Mr Shapps asking him to clarify the "mixed messages" coming from Government on summer holidays.  He wrote: "Today, you said that people should not book a holiday at this time. But just a few days ago the Prime Mi