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Zero fines issued for breaches of English or Scottish travel quarantine rules

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The National Police Chiefs’ Council revealed today that, in the first two weeks of the travel quarantine period (8th June to 22nd June), ZERO people were fined in England for breaching quarantine after returning to the UK.

This is, of course, not hugely surprising.  The quarantine rules were being enforced by someone ringing you on your mobile telephone to ask if you were at home or, if not, if you were on your way to or from the shops.  Only if you answered ‘no’ to this question would you be at risk of being fined.

You can see the official news release here.

Whether or not this adds to the criticism that the policy was pointless and unworkable in the first place remains to be seen.  The quarantine rules have been lifted today for anyone returning from specific countries – the quarantine list for English residents is here and the quarantine list for Scottish residents is here.

The situation in England is not as bad as the situation in Scotland, of course.

It was revealed earlier this week that Public Health Scotland was not authorised to access the Home Office IT system which holds information on arrivals in to the UK.  This meant that, not only had no fines been issued, but not a single person had even been contacted to see if they were sticking to the quarantine rules or not ….

Category

General

Comments (52)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Roberto says:
    10 Jul10 July 17:43

    Its amazing these people are actually in charge of a while country. I would not trust most of them to look after my dog for an afternoon.

    • Roberto says:
      10 Jul10 July 17:44

      * whole……

    • the_real_a says:
      10 Jul10 July 18:04

      Well – its certainly showing up the civil service to be totally inept at policy ideas. As with any organisation if you manage teams of clowns and all ideas and decisions have to go through the CEO then you become inept at delivering anything. A bit of leadership from ministers wouldn’t go amiss either.

      • Anthony Dunn says:
        10 Jul10 July 19:51

        Advisors advise, ministers decide. The decisions have all been taken by the Cummings-Johnson-Gove cabal. The responsibility starts and ends with these three criminals and NOT the Civil Service. I can scarcely believe what is going on behind that black front door at 10 Downing Street but it’s must be wholly excruciating to be a competent Civil Servant dealing with ideological obsessive who are simply blanking out any and all advice that doesn’t fit their agenda.

        • Kip says:
          10 Jul10 July 20:59

          If advisers advise then why have you included Cummings in the decision making?

        • Bill says:
          11 Jul11 July 00:31

          I concur

        • Andrew says:
          11 Jul11 July 15:59

          Quote:- “Competant Civil Servant”

          *Giggles*

        • Lady London says:
          11 Jul11 July 16:29

          If Boris doesnt abandon this ideological cr*p and accept the further year’s EU transition period the EU has kindly offered the UK, and there’s ample reason why he can accept this offer without losing face, then for the first time in my life I’ll vote for the Other Party.

    • jc says:
      10 Jul10 July 18:14

      Plenty can (always) be said about the government, but I don’t understand picking this as an example of idiocy. There are an awful lot of crimes that aren’t generally punished in practice: it doesn’t mean they don’t serve a purpose, that no-one is abiding by them, or that they should be abolished.

  • Erico1875 says:
    10 Jul10 July 17:46

    It took a month for Public Health Scotland to reveal that they did not have security clearance to access passenger lists.
    If they were serious about enforcing this quarantine they would have revealed this within the first few days and got the neccessary clearance surely?
    Complete failure IMO

    • Anthony Dunn says:
      10 Jul10 July 19:58

      Local authorities across England are stating that they are STILL (10Jun20) not receiving the pillar 2 data (individual postcodes, names and phone numbers) for the “world class” track & trace system promised by the Charlatan and chancer in Downing Street.

      Noticed any pattern yet? The blame is not with the Scottish Govt, it’s with the cretins in Downing Street and their ½ wit sycophantic acolytes who couldn’t even turn on a tap, never mind manage a public health emergency. They ought all to be in gaol.

  • jc says:
    10 Jul10 July 18:16

    Posting this here as a main comment, in lieu of wanting to reply it to every comment above (and inevitably below)…

    Plenty can (always) be said about the government, but I don’t understand picking this as an example of idiocy. There are an awful lot of crimes that aren’t generally punished in practice: it doesn’t mean they don’t serve a purpose, that no-one is abiding by them, or that they should be abolished.

    • Anna says:
      10 Jul10 July 18:52

      You make a good point; it looks to all intents and purposes that the government would hope that enough people had sufficient integrity to abide by quarantine to have some effect. However, it also makes them look completely ineffectual and frankly a laughing stock, compared with say, Spain which is fining tourists with abandon for breaching the rules (though this makes me think a) what were the Spanish expecting letting Brits back in and b) good, my compatriots can see what it’s like to actually have to obey some rules for a change).

      • Anna says:
        10 Jul10 July 18:58

        Though now I’m also thinking maybe it was actually a brilliant ploy to rake in some money, “We will allow the British back to spend loads of money on beer and goldfish bowl cocktails then fine them when they inevitably flout the social distancing rules. We might not even need an EU bailout at this rate!”

      • Harry T says:
        10 Jul10 July 19:58

        I plan to be a model tourist in Seville and Barcelona! I find it abhorrent when people visit a country and don’t respect their guidance, culture and laws.

  • Simon says:
    10 Jul10 July 18:47

    Having returned to Heathrow today, the policy is doing a lot more to spread the disease than control it based on what I saw. Heathrow has the perfect tools for avoiding contact with others i.e. e-gates but they are all shut, instead everyone has to queue with zero social distancing so border control can check the form. I was in the queue for about 45 minutes, would normally wizz through the e-gates in under 5 minutes.

    • Simon Schus says:
      10 Jul10 July 20:59

      Fascinating. There were no queue at all on Thursday! There were only three desks open and it took no time whatsoever. Through in two minutes after showing the email even on non-UK passports.

    • Lady London says:
      11 Jul11 July 16:38

      *Fawlty Towers border management

      Especially as we now know any environment in not aired to the outside has the virus lingering. So we keep people in that horrible closed low-celinged area for longer? When some passengers present will be children, who dont serm to understand the comcept of social distancing, and no evidence their parents are even trying?

      I feel really really sorry for the UK border employees who have to work in that environment.

  • Aston100 says:
    10 Jul10 July 19:09

    Hah, Bojo the clown was democratically elected.
    All we can do is blame the idiots who voted for this fool.
    And then theres the departure from the EU waiting to bite us soon.
    In the meanwhile, I see High Speed 2 is still planned on going ahead wasting over 100 billion pounds for no apparent reason other than the usual Tory cronyism.

    • Peter North says:
      10 Jul10 July 19:19

      Agree with the replacement of fool for tool.

    • Anna says:
      10 Jul10 July 19:36

      You vote for a party, not an individual, in this country.

    • mark2 says:
      11 Jul11 July 07:43

      So you are saying that a Labour/SNP coalition would have done a better job?
      We saw them in action for a few months before the election.

    • Lady London says:
      11 Jul11 July 16:40

      Agrer with canning HS2 and cant imagine why these cret1ns are still pushing it.

  • The Savage Squirrel says:
    10 Jul10 July 19:19

    Anyone who thinks this means the policy was inneffective has clearly never heard of nudge theory.

    Lets look at it another way – as we have never stopped ALL international travel or even attempted to do so, it was clearly never the intention to ensure NOBODY breaks quarantine – the intention was to put off enough people from travelling to significantly reduce inward transmission. If you can put off enough people from travelling just by an announcement with zero enforcement (and so zero expense from enforcement) then that sounds like a government success to me?

    What do people want here? 5000 police officers taken off regular duties to police this?

    • Nick says:
      10 Jul10 July 19:35

      That’s all very well and good until you stop to think that this serves only to reinforce to some people’s minds that they are above the law, while right-minded citizens who choose to follow the rules feel themselves hard done by as a result. Breeding resentment is never a good outcome of a government policy.

  • Amber Lynn says:
    10 Jul10 July 19:37

    If it was never the governments intention, then why waste everybody’s time, government resources, and the medias time to publicize the policy.

    If you think that’s a government success I would love to see what a failure looks like.

  • Anthony Dunn says:
    10 Jul10 July 19:47

    Really? Am I surprised?! This corrupt and morally degenerate government lead by a serial adulterer, pathological liar and charlatan couldn’t even turn on a tap, never mind organise a coherent public health strategy to counter the most serious public health event since the so-called “Spanish flu” of 1918.

    It should not come as any surprise to learn that the Cummings-Johnson junta has presided over a number of civilian “excess deaths” in the UK since Mar20 (at well over 65,000 according to the FT/ONS) that is on a par with what the Luftwaffe took five years to inflict 1939-45. The members of this government deserve to end up in gaol – and for a very long time.

    • The Lord says:
      10 Jul10 July 21:53

      Proof of corruption?

      • Lady London says:
        11 Jul11 July 16:44

        It’s coming close to the ferret-like one’s level of sleaze but this time with tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths attached to it.

        • Lady London says:
          11 Jul11 July 16:47

          noted the comments below and will pay attention to staying on travel topic in future

    • mradey says:
      11 Jul11 July 07:29

      God, you must be fun at parties.

      This is not a forum for political rants.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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