England has dropped the mandatory quarantine for travellers coming from abroad who are senior executives “undertaking activities which are likely to be of significant economic benefit to the UK”.
The exemption covers executives based overseas who are part of multinational firms and visiting their UK-based branches or executives of companies normally based overseas.
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The latter category is allowed to avoid self-isolation if they are “making a financial investment in a UK based business” or “establishing a new business within the UK”, the government said.
Sorry for the unparliamentary language but this just takes the pi**.
It is the lowest paid working people who have got our country through this crisis, risking their lives on the frontline. This is an offensive slap in the face for them and shows this government's true colours. https://t.co/OO3CFmfOcB
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) June 29, 2021
“Significant economic benefit” is quantified as “greater than 50% chance of creating or preserving at least 500 UK-based jobs” in either an existing UK-based business that has at least 500 employees or a new UK business within two years of the date of arrival in the UK.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy stressed that, if the activities can be done remotely or by anyone else, the traveller will have to quarantine.
People need to submit a form online to the authorities before travelling to the UK.
“Yet again it is one rule for those at the top and another for everyone else. This makes a total mockery of the sacrifices of the British people during this pandemic and this double standard is an insult to frontline workers that the British people will rightly be disgusted by,” Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner tweeted.
England is following a ‘traffic light system’ whereby travellers from amber countries must self-isolate for ten days, with an option to end the quarantine on day 5 by taking an additional test, while people coming from red countries must stay in a managed hotel for ten days.
Arrivals from a green list are not subject to quarantine.