Tourists arriving at Palma Son Sant Joan Airport in summer 2020

Might the UK be forced to rethink its travel restrictions? | Teresa Ayuga

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma16/05/2021 14:12
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While the talk in Mallorca is of when and if the island will make the UK green list for safe travel without the need for quarantine on return, the growing anxiety about the Indian variant is pushing the arguments in the UK towards maintaining tough international travel restrictions.

Labour's Yvette Cooper, who is chair of the House of Commons home affairs committee, told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that "the government needs to slow down". "I don't know why they are going ahead with lifting some of the international travel restrictions tomorrow (May 17)."

"We do of course want to move back to international travel," she stated, but asked directly if people returning from holiday should have to stay in a quarantine hotel, she said: "We don't know where we are going to be in six weeks time. This has to be assessed on a month-by-month basis. As things are now, I don't think it possible to be lifting the restrictions."

Also mentioning a much stronger system of home quarantine, Ms Cooper was pressed on whether people should be going on holiday. "Most people want to be able to hug their relatives. They want to be able to go out, the kids to stay in school, to be able to go out to the pub. If the price of that is having stronger restrictions at our border, I think most people would say that is the right thing to do for this summer."