Coronavirus: CBI urges ministers to ‘think very carefully’ about 14-day quarantine proposal

Companies ‘really worried’ that delays in moving crucial workers will put brakes on post-lockdown recovery

The head of the CBI has urged the government to “think very carefully” about its proposed 14-day quarantine for people arriving in the UK, warning it could put the brakes on economic recovery.

Dame Carolyn Fairbairn told Sky News’ Ridge on Sunday that restoring aviation links would be a “powerful” boost to the UK economy after lockdown and warned that aerospace and manufacturing businesses are “really worried” about the obstacles quarantine would cause to movements of critical workers.

Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said that any quarantine must be in place “for a relatively short amount of time” only, warning that as long as it remains there will be little or no boost to the minimal passenger numbers passing through the airport under lockdown.

Mr Holland-Kaye told Sky the government should be looking at an internationally-recognised “immunity passport” scheme, as well as agreements for “free flow of passengers” between nations with low levels of coronavirus infection as a means to restoring normal aviation.

Dame Carolyn said that getting people flying again would be “an incredibly powerful boost to our economy”.

“We are an island economy, we are service-based, with engineers flying in and out of the country fixing equipment,” she said. “I have been hearing from businesses in aerospace and manufacturing who are really worried about the potential quarantine.

“We do ask the government to think very carefully about how this is introduced so it doesn’t put the brakes on our economy in this fragile recovery.”

Mr Holland-Kaye said passenger numbers through Britain’s busiest airport had plunged 97 per cent, from an average of 250,000 a day to between 5,000 and 6,000, during lockdown.

And he warned: “This is a very minimal level of traffic and I think that as long as the quarantine is in place, that will continue at those low levels.

“The quarantine cannot be in place for more than a relatively short amount of time if we are going to get the economy moving again.

“This is where we are urging the government to have a common international standard, working with other countries so that traffic can start to flow in a normal way between low-risk countries.”

Restoring aviation is more than “just about going on holiday”, he said, pointing out that 40 per cent of the UK’s exports go on passenger planes from Heathrow.

“Aviation is the lifeblood of the UK economy, so many manufacturers rely on the supply chain coming by air, their exports go by air,” he told Sky News.

Heathrow has been near-empty of passengers during lockdown (Simon Calder)

Mr Holland-Kaye described how Heathrow airport will from next week be using thermal imagining to detect Covid-19 among passengers, which he said “could be part of the solution to health screening at airports”.

He suggested there should be a “free flow” of passengers between the UK and countries that have very low risks of transmission.

He said: “I think that if the UK government, with one of the biggest aviation sectors in the world, were to get together with the European Union and the United States, between them they have the heft and the global, diplomatic and economic power to set that international standard.

“I think the approach to take is the risk-based approach as we do with security, where if two countries are very low-risk free of transmission, there should be a free flow of passengers between those countries.”

Dame Carolyn said the government should look at the examples of Vienna and Hong Kong, where testing at the airports was being undertaken as an alternative to quarantines.