The Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel, Operator Liability and Public Health Information) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (England) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020/568) (“the International Travel Regulations”) to:

(a)

add the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania to the list, in Schedule B1 of the International Travel Regulations, of countries and territories subject to additional measures. The additional measures:

(i)

remove exemptions from the requirement to self-isolate and the requirement to complete a Passenger Locator Form for passengers who have arrived in England from these countries or who have arrived in England from elsewhere and, during the 10 days preceding their arrival in England, have been in or transited through them;

(ii)

exclude arrivals from these countries and members of their household from the “Test to Release” regime;

(iii)

require people residing with arrivals from these countries to self-isolate;

(b)

reduce the amount of passenger information that people travelling to England are required to provide on the Passenger Locator Form in order to comply with the requirement in regulation 3 of the International Travel Regulations;

(c)

updates the air crew exemption from the requirement to possess notification of a negative coronavirus test result to ensure that crew who perform duties onboard aircraft in the interests of the safety of the aircraft, such as loadmasters, are exempt.

These Regulations also amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Pre-Departure Testing and Operator Liability) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (S.I. 2021/38) so that operators are not required to ensure that a notification of a negative coronavirus test result is from a “qualifying test”, i.e. a test which meets the standards specified in paragraph 1 of Schedule 2B to the International Travel Regulations. Operators are required to check that passengers possess a notification of a coronavirus test which includes specified information, while liability for ensuring the result was from a qualifying test falls on the passenger.

Further, these Regulations amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Public Health Information for Passengers Travelling to England) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020/567) so that operators of commercial transport services from outside the common travel area to England are required to provide information to passengers about the requirement to possess notification of a negative coronavirus test result.

An impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument. An explanatory memorandum has been published alongside this instrument at www.legislation.gov.uk.