The Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel and Public Health Information to Travellers) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2020

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (Wales) Regulations 2020 (“the International Travel Regulations”); and the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Public Health Information for Persons Travelling to Wales etc.) Regulations 2020 (“the Public Health Information Regulations”).

The International Travel Regulations impose requirements on persons entering Wales after having been abroad; these relate to information that must be provided using an online form and a mandatory isolation period of 14 days. These requirements are subject to exceptions, and certain categories of person are exempt from having to comply, including persons travelling from the common travel area.

Part 2 of these Regulations amends the International Travel Regulations to extend the exemptions from the requirement to provide information; and to extend the exemptions and exceptions from the requirement to isolate (regulations 3 to 6).

Regulation 3 amends the International Travel Regulations to exempt certain categories of worker – those who engage in regular travel but who typically do not encounter passengers – from having to comply with the requirement to provide information online.

Regulation 4 amends the International Travel Regulations to extend the exemption from the requirement to isolate. By virtue of these amendments, persons entering Wales after being in one or more of the countries listed in Schedule 3 to the International Travel Regulations (as inserted by the Schedule to these Regulations) will not be required to isolate. These countries and territories, along with the countries and territories of the common travel area, are referred to in the amendments as “exempt countries and territories”.

But the extension of the exemption for the countries and territories listed in Schedule 3 is subject to the transitional provision made by regulation 7. This preserves the effect of the International Travel Regulations in their unamended form, in relation to persons who, in the two-week period before 10 July 2020 (the date these Regulations came into force), arrived in the common travel area from a place outside that area; this is the case even if the place in question is, from 10 July 2020 onwards, an exempt country or territory.

Where such persons are in Wales or arrive in Wales during the two-week period starting with the day they entered the common travel area (which means the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man), they will be subject to the rules on isolation imposed by Part 3 of the International Travel Regulations as those rules stood before the 10 July 2020.

The amendments made by regulation 5 relate to certain elite sporting events, and are included to enable persons required to isolate by the International Travel Regulations to leave the premises at which they’re isolating for reasons relating to the persons’ involvement with those events.

Regulation 6 includes miscellaneous amendments to Schedule 2 to the International Travel Regulations, the Schedule which describes categories of person who are exempt from the requirements of the International Travel Regulations. These amendments either modify existing categories of person or add new categories of person to the Schedule.

Part 2 of these Regulations also changes the period within which the Welsh Ministers must carry out reviews of the International Travel Regulations to a 28-day period instead of a 21-day period (regulation 8); and makes minor miscellaneous amendments (regulation 9).

The Public Health Information Regulations require the operators of commercial air or sea passenger services that arrive in Wales to provide certain information to passengers using those services. The information relates to measures being taken in the United Kingdom in response to coronavirus, including measures required by the International Travel Regulations.

The amendments made to the Public Health Information Regulations by Part 3 of these Regulations include minor changes relating to the statement to be given to passengers travelling on services arriving in Wales (regulation 10); and a change to extend the review period for the purposes of the Welsh Ministers’ reviews of the legislation (regulation 11).

The Welsh Ministers’ Code of Practice on the carrying out of Regulatory Impact Assessments was considered in relation to these Regulations. As a result, a regulatory impact assessment has not been prepared as to the likely cost and benefit of complying with these Regulations.