Covid: UK arrivals face £10k fines and jail sentences

New £10,000 fines will also be dished out to international arrivals who fail to take Covid-19 tests and those who lie on their passenger locator forms now face up to 10 years in jail.

Announcing the new measures in Parliament today, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the new system would help keep the UK safe from new coronavirus strains.

• Health Secretary - Matt Hancock

He said: "We’re setting up a new system of hotel quarantine for UK and Irish residents who’ve been in red list countries in the last 10 days.

"In short, this means any returning residents from these countries will have to quarantine in an assigned hotel room for 10 days from the time of arrival.

"Before they travel, they’ll have to book through an online platform and pay for a quarantine package costing £1,750 for an individual travelling alone which includes the hotel, transport and testing.

"This booking system will go live on Thursday when we’ll also publish the full detailed guidance."

Passengers will only be able to enter the UK through a small number of ports and when they arrive they'll be escorted to a designated hotel, which will be closed to non quarantining guests.

A total of 16 hotels and 4,600 rooms have been secured by the Government.

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Mr Hancock also announced new fines for international arrivals who fail to take Covid-19 tests, adding those who lie on their passenger locator forms face up to 10 years in jail.

He told the Commons: “People who flout these rules are putting us all at risk.

“Passenger carriers will have a duty in law to make sure that passengers have signed up for these new arrangements before they travel, and will be fined if they don’t, and we will be putting in place tough fines for people who don’t comply.

“This includes a £1,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take a mandatory test, a £2,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take the second mandatory test, as well as automatically extending their quarantine period to 14 days, and a £5,000 fixed penalty notice – rising to £10,000 – for arrivals who fail to quarantine in a designated hotel.”

He added: “Anyone who lies on the passenger locator form and tries to conceal that they’ve been in a country on the red list in the 10 days before arrival here will face a prison sentence of up to 10 years.”

Mr Hancock said the measures will be put into law this week and more resources will be available to enforce them.

He said: “I make no apologies for the strength of these measures because we’re dealing with one of the strongest threats to our public health that we’ve faced as a nation.”

There are 33 countries on the red list from which travellers will have to quarantine.