Cabinet doves and Treasury hawks in battle over borders as UK tries to keep Covid variants at bay

It is a battle over the UK’s borders that will pitch the Cabinet “doves” of Matt Hancock, Priti Patel and Michael Gove against the economic “hawks” of the Treasury and Department for Transport.

The Cabinet’s coronavirus operations committee (Covid O) will see the two sides determine in the coming days how far the Government should go in further tightening the restrictions on international travel to combat the spread of the new highly-infectious Covid strains.

After Boris Johnson closed the 63 travel corridors last Friday, on top of compulsory pre-departure Covid testing for all arrivals to the UK, the status quo is the most “hawkish” of the options on the committee’s agenda.

However, it also appears to be the least likely. At the other end of the scale is a blanket ban on travel and/or the introduction of Australian and New Zealand-style “quarantine hotels” where travellers entering the UK would be forced to stay – potentially at their own cost – while they self-isolated.

Yet, there is serious concern within Mr Sunak’s Treasury and Mr Shapps’ Department for Transport (DfT) over the “severe” impact it could have not only on the aviation industry but also the wider economy.

Their nervousness was not eased by the fact that the Treasury was not originally invited, according to sources, and was only brought on board after the Department of International Trade (DIT) and DfT protested.

"If you shut the borders there are obviously going to be economic consequences to that,” said one senior source from the “doves”.

Another observed: “Once in place, the restrictions would be difficult to exit, as Australia and New Zealand have found and their economies are suffering as a result. Nor have their quarantines and managed self-isolation proved watertight.”

Breathing down their necks is a powerful alliance of senior Tory backbenchers, peers and opposition politicians representing constituencies where the aviation and travel industry has already been decimated by the virtual shutdown of air travel since last March.

Nearly 90 MPs and peers including seven former Tory ministers warn on Friday that although they accept the closure of travel corridors was necessary, it will still be a “devastating blow” for jobs in the aviation and travel industries.

Adding to the pressure on Chancellor Sunak’s finances with their call for a comprehensive bail-out, they say the sector has been among the hardest hit in the pandemic and “suffered unprecedented losses, with passenger numbers at historically low levels even during the peak summer season”.

But the “doves”, led by Home Secretary Ms Patel and Health Secretary Mr Hancock, believe tougher curbs are needed given the serious risk from newly-emerging, highly-infectious Covid-19 strains from Brazil and South Africa, potentially capable of reinfecting people or even undermining the vaccine.

Where Britain was behind the curve at the start of the last pandemic coming late to the idea of quarantine, they argue the country is – and should be – leading the way not only on vaccines but closing borders to prevent the spread of the new strains.

EU leaders met on Thursday night agreed to introduce new measures that are broadly similar to the UK’s in requiring pre-departure testing within 48 hours and quarantine on arrival.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said: “In order to keep our external and internal borders, open, we need targeted measures that keep us all safe."

"In view of the very serious health situation, all non essential travel should be strongly discouraged, both within the country and of course across borders.”

She told leaders her EU executive was working on plans for common travel restrictions.

It is, perhaps, no surprise that this week politicians and the public were reminded that Ms Patel argued for a ban on travel last March, but was overruled.

Then the EU and UK positions were reversed with the UK’s borders open to flights from hotspots like China and Iran, in contrast to the EU’s ban then on almost all travellers from outside the bloc.

In a leaked tape from a video call with the Conservative Friends of India, Ms Patel was asked if Britain’s borders should have been closed earlier, to which she said: “The answer is yes, I was an advocate of closing them last March.”

The decision not to close them has proved to be a sore in the side of Ms Patel into which Labour’s home affairs committee chair Yvette Cooper and Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds have ladled salt – as evidence of the Government’s failure to get a grip on the pandemic.

Only 273 out of the 18.1 million people who entered the UK by air in the three months up to the Covid lockdown were formally quarantined, with the Government’s chief scientific officer Sir Patrick Vallance admitting many of Britain’s cases came from the “high level of travel into the UK”.

It perhaps goes some way to explain why Ms Patel and Mr Hancock, backed by Cabinet Office minister Mr Gove, are determined the Government should not make the same mistake again over the new mutant Covid strains, especially if the vaccine and lockdown suppresses the outbreak.

The Home Office is now understood to be steering the policy on quarantine hotels to the annoyance of the transport department.

It has even considered tagging travellers or using GPS to track them to ensure they self-isolate to combat high rates of non-compliance, although it is understood these ideas have been dismissed. “It would be remiss of us not to consider everything,” said a source.

The most likely option at the Covid O meeting is “quarantine hotels” with negotiations already under way with chains including the Marriott group and IHG, which runs Holiday Inns.

The debate is likely to centre on whether all travellers should be required to self-isolate in the hotels or if it could be restricted to those from high-risk countries hit by variant Covid strains.

Test and release – under which arrivals can leave quarantine if they test negative on the fifth day – could also be suspended, so that people have to spend the full ten days self-isolating.

However, critics warn it could be counter-productive as the 10-day option with a test on the fifth has been shown by research to be as effective as full 14-day quarantine. “It’s not a simple thing of just getting rid of of test and release,” said a source.

The nuclear option is a blanket ban on non-UK residents, mirroring the measures in Australia and New Zealand, which is seen as a beacon in combating Covid.

However, it is understood ministers are wary that if such a ban was introduced it would likely stay in place for the longer term as more variants emerged, and, as a result, have severe consequences for the economy.

It is likely the Government would also have to organise a global repatriation operation to bring home Britons stranded in countries they have been visiting, living or working in and who could not get back with flights grounded by the travel ban.

One of the criticisms of Australia and New Zealand is that they do not have an exit strategy from their travel bans and quarantine so ministers would need to establish how the Government would end the restrictions if they closed the border.

In the Commons on Thursday, Mr Hancock was giving little away about the outcome of the Cabinet debate, except to agree with one of his predecessors Jeremy Hunt who warned the new strains were “massively more dangerous and harder to control than many realise”.

Mr Hancock said: “It’s about making sure that new variants that might not have been dealt with as effectively by the vaccine… don’t arrive and to stop them from coming. So that it is something on which we have recently taken very significant action and will keep under very close review.”