Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what evidence-based assessment he has made of the effectiveness of quarantine measures for people coming in to the UK from abroad in containing covid-19.

Throughout the outbreak, we have brought in the right measures at the right time based on scientific advice. Scientific advice can give us estimates of the incidence of coronavirus internationally and domestically, and ministers decide how to respond to the risk of imported cases based on this advice.

The scientific advice shows that when domestic transmission is high, imported cases represent a small amount of the overall total and they make no significant difference to the epidemic. However, this can change when the domestic transmission/rate of infection is low, and people are arriving from countries with a higher rate of infection. Requiring arrivals to the UK to self-isolate for 14 days will reduce the risk of transmission from this group.

These measures are to be subject to review every 28 days, to ensure they are in line with the latest scientific evidence and remain effective and necessary.