Travellers being used as 'guinea pigs', says family returning to UK

Parents who will be spending ten days in quarantine hotel with a five-week-old baby slam the government for treating them like ‘guinea pigs’ – as Heathrow boss blasts the ‘significant gaps’ in plan

Beckie Morris is returning to the UK with husband Matthew and her daughter
The couple will have to pay a quarantine bill of thousands of pounds if they do
She said the hotel quarantine announcement had left her in ‘tears most nights’
Border guards and Heathrow airport have spoken today of how they feel under-prepared for new legislation requiring entrants from 33 countries to quarantine

A paramedic couple returning to the UK with their five-week-old daughter after four years living in Abu Dhabi have said travellers should not be used as ‘guinea pigs’.

From Monday, UK nationals or residents returning to England from 33 countries will be required to spend 10 days in Government-designated quarantine hotel at a cost of £1,750 for an individual.

The regulations have been published just days before the scheme becomes law.

But border guards and Heathrow airport have spoken today of how they feel under-prepared for the new rules, with officials saying earlier today that they feel powerless to stop travellers who may ‘leg it’ from airports to avoid quarantining.

A Heathrow spokesman said on Saturday that the government’s plan has ‘significant gaps’, while border officials said they did not feel adequately prepared, saying they have had little guidance on what to do if people refuse to comply.

Parents living abroad whose unaccompanied minors travelling back to school in the UK have also pleaded with the Government to rethink hotel quarantine rules.

And families returning to live in the UK have been left exasperated by the lack of clarity around childcare.

Beckie Morris, 30, planned to repatriate to the UK from the United Arab Emirates with husband Matthew and their daughter, but they now face a quarantine bill of thousands of pounds if they do.

Beckie Morris, 30, planned to repatriate to the UK with husband Matthew and their five-week-old daughter, but they now face a quarantine bill of thousands of pounds if they do

The new mother said there was ‘no information’ on the Government website about what to do with young children.

She said: ‘We’d have to arrange all the formula. I don’t know what we do about sterilising bottles, or nappies or washing their clothes – there’s all this unknown.

‘I tried to reach out, and I know it’s still really early days, but there’s just no information.

Beckie said there was ‘no information’ on the Government website about what to do with young children

‘They haven’t really laid out what actually happens when you get to that hotel and I don’t think that’s going to be known until the first person goes in there.

‘People shouldn’t be used as guinea pigs – especially not paying that amount, that is an extortionate amount of money.’

The couple, who are both paramedics, planned to return to Kent where Mr Morris has been offered a job.

Mrs Morris said the hotel quarantine announcement had left her in ‘tears most nights’.

She said the family would be ‘stranded’ in the United Arab Emirates if they do not return, as both have given up their jobs, but delays in getting their daughter a passport meant they had not been able to come home sooner.

Mr Morris has been vaccinated against Covid-19 and she said the area where they live is ‘safe and secure’.

‘It feels like we are being punished,’ she added.

Due to the expense, the family considered travelling to a non-red list country for 10 days before returning to the UK: ‘That’s what it is forcing people to do.

Parents of children returning to the UK alone face ‘stressful’ quarantine dilemma

Parents of unaccompanied minors travelling back to school in the UK have pleaded with the Government to rethink hotel quarantine rules, with one father demanding: ‘Don’t lock my children up.’

Hundreds of children whose parents live and work overseas but who attend boarding schools in the UK are keen to return when the Government allows educational establishments to reopen.

But those arriving from countries on the Government’s red list will be required to quarantine in a hotel for 10 days once new rules are introduced on Monday and, with no date set for schools to reopen, parents have been left with a difficult choice.

Karl Feilder, who lives in the United Arab Emirates, has three daughters, two of whom, aged 15 and 17, attend a boarding school near Reading and are hoping to be back in the country once it reopens for on-site learning.

But Mr Feilder, the CEO of a biofuel company, said he would not allow his children to return if it meant quarantining in a hotel alone.

He said: ‘To be perfectly honest, I think anyone in their right mind would not do that with their children and indeed it’s completely mad, completely unnecessary.

‘The fact that they haven’t told us when schools are going back means we can’t take the decision now to put them on a plane today or tomorrow to beat the Monday morning deadline.

‘They’ve got nowhere to stay in the UK – are they going back to an empty school, or a school that’s closed, or is the school going to be open? We don’t know.’

Priya Mitchell, a school counsellor who lives in Abu Dhabi, decided on Friday to book her 16-year-old daughter on to a flight on Sunday so she could be back in the country ahead of the new rules being brought in.

Ms Mitchell’s daughter, who attends a state boarding school in Gloucester, will have to isolate at her 21-year-old brother’s university accommodation, a studio flat.

‘It’s totally ridiculous to put families under this much stress trying to work out what is the best thing for their children,’ Ms Mitchell said.

Ms Mitchell, 49, a social worker in Hillingdon, where Heathrow is situated, said part of her role was dealing with unaccompanied minors arriving at the airport.

She said she was ‘astounded’ the Government had not given sufficient thought to ‘vulnerable children’ like her daughter.

‘What has been published recently by the Government is that if an unaccompanied minor comes back through then a parent in the UK can join that child in a hotel,’ she said.

‘Well that’s just ridiculous, because all of those children who are returning to school are not returning to parents, they’re returning to schools.’

Ms Mitchell said having a security guard on each hotel floor was insufficient.

‘Someone could just turn up to her door and barge in and she could be assaulted,’ she said.

‘Having worked in child protection and knowing statutory guidelines I’m really disappointed that yet again that’s a gap that is not being filled.’

Mr Feilder, 55, said his daughters – one of whom is scheduled to take GCSEs this year and one of whom is in her first year of A-levels – are finding the uncertainty extremely stressful.

‘We try not to talk about it too much because it normally ends in tears,’ he said.

‘As a parent I feel like I’m completely at sea – I can’t give my children decent answers because I don’t understand the policy of the Government.’

Mr Feilder, who said his whole family has been vaccinated, believes the Government should have introduced mandatory Covid tests for travellers last March and added: ‘The UK’s policy on this has been pathetic.’

He suggested children returning to the country should be allowed to quarantine at school, adding: ‘The schools are perfectly well able to look after the kids and make sure they’re staying put.’

Mr Feilder, originally from Newport Pagnell, said that with ‘fantastic’ vaccination programmes in the UK and the UAE it should be possible to have ‘nice and straightforward travel’.

He added: ‘We’re quite happy to do the Covid tests, we’re quite happy to do the home quarantine, whatever – just don’t lock my children up.’

The Department for Health and Social Care has been contacted for comment.

‘But we’ve looked online and there are hardly any countries open anywhere. So realistically we are looking at having to spend this money.

‘(The Government) hasn’t included places like America where the case numbers are ridiculous.

‘Here we have access to four vaccines, we have Covid tests that cost approximately £15 and you can go and get one anywhere. People have to be tested every week here.

‘They are doing national drives again, going around people’s houses by blocks of apartments, knocking on their door, and everyone having tests so they can find all the asymptomatic cases, and they can sort it all out.’

Not everyone returning has been abroad on holiday, she added.

‘They seem to be penalising us, forgetting there is a really big ex-pat community that has really struggled.’

Meanwhile, parents of unaccompanied minors travelling back to school in the UK have pleaded with the Government to rethink the hotel quarantine rules, with one father demanding: ‘Don’t lock my children up.’