Could holidays to Spanish islands be back on? Transport Secretary Grant Shapps hints quarantine-free breaks to places like Gran Canaria could return as travel chiefs urge ministers to drop ‘snakes and ladders’ approach to setting rules

  • UK Government's current approach is to impose quarantine on entire countries
  • But Grant Shapps today hinted travel to Spanish islands could be restarted
  • He said it is possible to 'distinguish' infection rate between islands and mainland
  • Ministers have added Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Jamaica to 'red list' 

By Jack Maidment, Deputy Political Editor For Mailonline

Published: | Updated:

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps today hinted quarantine-free holidays to the Spanish islands could be allowed to restart as he suggested they could be treated differently to the Spanish mainland. 

The Foreign Office is currently advising against all non-essential travel to Spain, including the Balearic and Canary Islands, after a spike in coronavirus case numbers with all travellers returning to the UK facing 14 days in self-isolation.  

Ministers are under pressure to ditch the blanket approach to quarantine and introduce a more nuanced regional system because infection rates on the islands are lower than on the mainland. 

The Government has so far resisted the calls and said a regional system would be too complicated. 

But Mr Shapps today signalled a shift may be possible as he said he accepted 'that actually islands are potentially an area where you can distinguish'. 

His comments came as the travel industry urged the Government to drop the 'snakes and ladders-style quarantine game' after Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Jamaica became the latest additions to the UK's 'red list'.     

Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, today hinted that holidays to the Spanish islands could soon return

Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, today hinted that holidays to the Spanish islands could soon return

Mr Shapps was told during an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the infection rate in Gran Canaria is closer to that in Cheshire than in Catalonia as he was asked whether he agreed that blanket quarantine is too 'blunt' an instrument. 

He replied: 'It is by its very nature a clunky thing when you have to look at a country as a whole.' 

Told that Germany does currently have a regional system for imposing quarantine, Mr Shapps said: 'It is interesting. If you look at the data that we have available and it is the Joint Biosecurity Centre who do all of this crunching and make their recommendations, in the United Kingdom for example we now have capacity for a third of a million tests per day, going up to 500,000. 

'We have mass surveying ongoing by the Office for National Statistics and expanding. 

'We are able to say as a result of that, for example, we knew that there was a problem in Leicester or in the north west... we are able to really define it. 

'We don't have access in foreign countries to that sort of granular data to say "well in this particular area...".

'Even where we do, for example a couple of weeks ago with France people were saying "it looks better in the Dordogne than it does in the south of France" or whatever, even where we do of course travel within that country could be easier. 

'Now I do accept that actually islands are potentially an area where you can distinguish.

'But even there, we're having to work very carefully and closely with the authorities on the ground to check that the data is accurate.'

Mr Shapps said the Government's 'first priority had to be protecting the UK population' and 'we cannot see this return by re-importing it by people coming home from a break'. 

 'We're seeing too much of that and we will always clamp down on it, I'm afraid,' he said. 

Travel bosses said the Government's current approach to imposing quarantine was 'chaotic' and they fear the eventual return of a worldwide travel ban. 

Charlie Cornish, the chief executive of Manchester Airports Group, which runs Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands, said the approach was 'sluggish' and 'illogical'. 

Paul Charles, founder of the PC Agency, the travel consultants, told The Times: 'The weekly in-out, snakes and ladders-style quarantine game is just not helping the travel sector in any way whatsoever. This policy must be abandoned and replaced by effective testing. 

'There is a danger that we will simply return to blanket quarantine, which was abandoned after only three and a half weeks because it was so unpopular. That's the way we are heading.' 

Covid-19SpainGrant Shapps

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