Quarantine hotel scheme to be in place by mid-February

UK residents returning from countries on the coronavirus “red list” will have to quarantine in hotels from 15 February.

Passengers will have to stay in their rooms for ten nights, with hotels expected to provide rooms for more than 1,000 new people every day, according to the BBC.

Labour has accused the government of a chaotic approach to the roll-out of the new quarantine measures, claiming hotel chains have not yet been consulted.

Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas Symonds told PoliticsHome that it is “unacceptable” that the scheme has not been established yet.

He said: “It’s now over a year since the virus first arrived in the UK and Ministers are still stumbling from one crisis to another.

“It is unacceptable that they are not even able to put in place these - far too limited - hotel quarantine measures. Conservative incompetence is putting people at risk.”

Quarantine hotels are expected to be set up near airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

The rules will apply to UK nationals and residents returning to the country from 33 "red list" COVID-19 hotspots, including several South American and African countries where new variants have been detected in large numbers of people.

Most foreign nationals from high-risk countries already face UK travel bans.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon warned earlier this week that Scotland could not afford to risk “fresh importation” of cases from overseas and said there would be “managed quarantine” for anyone arriving into Scotland, regardless of which country they have arrived from.

She said the existing four nations approach did not go far enough.

However, airport bosses in Scotland said they had no idea how these tougher restrictions would work, and criticised the Scottish Government for not involving the industry in its discussions.