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  • 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 travelers are already required to have a negative covert tests before they arrive from Monday.

  • All passengers will have to self isolate for 10 days and be tested on Day two.

  • On day eight, those arriving from the 33 countries on the government's red list will be taken to a hotel, but they have to stay for 10 days at a cost of 1 £750 On.

  • If people violate the rules, they could face large fines on 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 Matters traveled 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 to quarantine in a hotel is extortionate.

  • I think it would 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 loss Juan or ill family is etcetera.

  • 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.

  • Yeah, under the government's policy, only those arriving from countries on the U.

  • K's Red list will need to quarantine in a hotel.

  • But labor 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 I've identified why a half over half of them no on the so called red list holidays are currently illegal, but it seems many of us already thinking about summer Sun holiday firm to he say they've already had nearly three 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 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.

  • But what we do know is this just a huge amount of demand and pent up 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 on.

  • We have therefore going father 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 on potential passengers are waiting to see where the summer travel could go ahead.

  • Well, that's the big question, isn't Caroline?

  • This is all open ended.

  • We don't know how long it's gonna last.

  • So what could it mean for some other days?

  • It is open ended.

  • We don't know when it's gonna finish.

  • 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 on.

  • Of course, that's not in the U.

  • K's control.

  • Then you also have to think about considerations for where new variants might come from.

  • When we've seen country bands, 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 captained, 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.

  • It's a very uncertain picture for the travel industry at the moment.

  • We heard earlier today that travel company jet to have taken the decision.

  • Thio extend suspension of flights and holidays until the 14th off April.

  • The travel industry in general are just desperate to know how we get out of this on when aren't we all, Caroline, thank you very much.

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.

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