A law firm is to seek a judicial review into the government’s mandatory hotel quarantine policy for travellers entering the UK from red list countries.
PGMBM will ask for permission at the High Court tomorrow (Thursday).
Tom Goodhead, managing partner of the firm, said the policy had led to the “false imprisonment” of people who are fully vaccinated and have tested negative, who he said “should not be detained in this way”.
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“The idea that they need to pay for the privilege of their own imprisonment is outrageous,” he told the BBC.
“It is for this reason that we are taking the UK government to court.”
The planned action comes after 10 African countries were abruptly added to the red list followed by Nigeria amid fears over the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 forcing travellers to self-isolate at government quarantine hotels for 11 nights at a cost of £2,285.
Almost 41,000 people have signed a petition demanding that the government removes South Africa from the travel red list.
The Archbishop of Canterbury also urged the government to scrap the red list with Omicron likely to become dominant in the UK.
He tweeted: “It is also morally wrong – and self-defeating – effectively to punish other nations for being transparent when they discover new Covid variants.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said: “The quarantine measures we have in place are minimising the risk of variants coming into the UK and safeguarding the hard-won progress of our vaccination programme.
“The majority of passengers who have used the Managed Quarantine Service have been satisfied with the service. All complaints are treated seriously and are investigated fully.”
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