• Government publishes details of tailored testing system for professions exempt from quarantine rules
• New regime will commence on 6 April and use lateral flow tests to rapidly identify cases coming into the UK
• Limited number of professions will be exempt from quarantining in order to keep freight and other crucial industries moving freely

Earlier this year the government strengthened its border regime, putting new controls in place to protect the UK from the spread of COVID-19 and new variants entering. From 6 April bespoke testing will be made available to certain professions to enable them to carry out their roles whilst providing an additional layer of protection to help ensure positive cases are detected.

Under this new bespoke testing regime international arrivals who are in the country for longer than two days will be required to take a test before the end of day two. People will be able to access these tests through several routes, including home tests and community testing sites. Those remaining in the UK for any longer than 2 days will then be required to take a further test every 3 days – typically on days 5 and 8.

If people working in these sectors are staying for two days or fewer you are not required to take tests. You may be required to complete a pre-departure test, even if you have an exemption from quarantine. International arrivals travelling outside the Common Travel Area daily must complete and submit a lateral flow test at least once every 3 days.

The professions exempt from quarantining and able to access bespoke testing are:

• Hauliers
• Border security duties (UK officials and contractors)
• International prison escorts
• Aircraft crew and pilots
• Aerospace engineers
• Channel tunnel system workers
• International rail crew, passenger and freight operations (Eurostar, Eurotunnel, Network Rail and high-speed rail workers)
• Seafarers and masters
• Essential defence activity (in scope are defence personnel, both military and civilian; visiting forces; and defence contractors
• Persons transporting human blood, blood components, organs, tissues or cells
• Seasonal agricultural workers

These tests will be available through a number of routes including:

• workplace testing programmes available to employers
• community testing programmes offered by all local authorities in England
• at home, by collecting lateral flow self-test kits at community sites, ordering test kits online or by dialling 119
• for hauliers, at the network of dedicated testing sites across the strategic road network (as well as the methods outlined above)

If an individual tests positive with a lateral flow test, they will be required to take a confirmatory PCR test. A subsequent positive PCR test will be sent for genomic sequencing, to detect variants of concern. The individual will be required to self-isolate for 10 days from the day after the test was taken.

Swift detection of cases means those who test positive can quickly isolate and, in doing so, break chains of transmission and suppress the virus.

Some exempt professions are required to still do day 2 and day 8 PCR tests if their travel is intermittent but will not have to quarantine.

These professions are:

• Border Security Duties (non-UK officials and contractors)
• Regular work abroad
• Civil aviation inspectors
• Bus and coach drivers
• Crown Servants and Government Contractors that meet the required criteria as persons undertaking or facilitating essential government work/essential state business
• Elite sportspeople – international and domestic
• Representatives of a foreign country or territory or British Overseas Territories
• Oil and gas workers
• Nuclear personnel
• Specialist technical workers, postal workers and telecoms workers
• Sponsors of clinical trials

All international arrivals not employed in these professions, fishers or diplomats will be required to quarantine for 10 days – either at home or in a managed quarantine hotel – and follow the mandatory testing regime of taking a Covid-19 test on or before day 2 and on or after day 8 of quarantining.

Anyone coming into the UK and found to not be complying with the new testing requirements could face fines of up to £2,000.

From 6 April, new testing requirements will be introduced for hauliers entering England from abroad, to help reduce the risk of new COVID-19 variants entering the UK.

All hauliers staying in the country for longer than two days will be required to take a lateral flow test before the end of day two. Hauliers remaining in the country will then be required to take a further test every three days – so typically on days 2, 5 and 8.

Hauliers will be able to access testing at one of the many government information and advice sites – which provide hauliers with free coronavirus tests – or use workplace or community testing centres.

New legal requirements to limit contact between the community and international hauliers are also set to be introduced alongside inbound haulier testing. All hauliers arriving in the country will now be required to self-isolate in their cabs for the duration of their time in England, leaving only for specific reasons such as to buy food, use a toilet or undertake limited exercise, or get a COVID-19 test, among other reasons.

These requirements on hauliers will apply for the 10 days after arrival. Hauliers found not to be complying with the new self-isolation requirements could face fines of up to £1,000.

Hauliers that test positive at any point throughout their journey in England, and that cannot secure a safe environment in which to self-isolate, will immediately be re-directed to self-isolate in hotel accommodation set up by the Government at a number of locations in the country. If they are able to safely self-isolate at home or with family or friends in the UK, there are expected to do so.

Hauliers will be subject to regular monitoring on arrival in England.

The government is confident new inbound testing requirements for hauliers won’t negatively impact trade, given the successful roll out of the outbound testing regime did not markedly impact on trade flows

Background

• The testing requirements will apply equally to UK-resident hauliers, who will in addition be able to make use of home testing kits or workplace testing facilities to satisfy the new requirements.
• Hauliers will also continue to need to provide evidence of a negative coronavirus test result before travelling from England to the Netherlands, Germany or Denmark. A similar requirement for hauliers travelling to France was recently removed.
• A full list of the government’s information and advice sites.
• Hauliers will be able to use evidence of the same negative test result to satisfy both the new UK requirement for regular testing and the pre-departure requirements of other countries.
• Hauliers have been highly compliant with the current testing requirements, with over 360,000 having already been successfully tested for COVID-19 since December so far.

Clubs have been through a rigorous application and due diligence process to determine their financial needs. The support will cover essential survival costs due to the lack of spectators for an extended period due to the coronavirus pandemic. In many cases owners have been required to inject additional support alongside that provided by the government to protect their clubs.

Premiership Rugby clubs are largely reliant on ticket sales and fans being in stadiums to remain solvent. This funding will allow the league to complete its 2020/21 season.

It follows the Government recently announcing more than £40 million provided to support grassroots rugby union clubs, up to £5.5 million to support the launch of the men’s Championship competition earlier this month, and £1.1 million for professional women’s rugby, including the Premier 15s and covid-19 related costs for the Red Roses’ Women’s Six Nations campaign.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said:

We know that the restrictions on spectators continue to have consequences for many sports. That includes Rugby Union and its clubs at the elite level through to the grassroots.

That’s why we’re helping our major spectator sports, with money already benefiting more than 100 organisations, from women’s football, to netball, badminton and basketball, with more to follow as we navigate our roadmap back to normality.

This funding will support the survival and continued visibility of men’s domestic rugby union at the highest level, allowing the league to complete its season.

Darren Childs, Chief Executive of Premiership Rugby, said:

In our hour of need, this Government offered the financial help so urgently needed to allow Premiership Rugby clubs to continue to entertain fans with enthralling games. But more importantly to survive the pandemic so they can continue to play such an important role in the communities they serve.

We have now completed almost two full seasons without fans in stadia, with the loss of matchday revenue, and that would not have been financially possible without the help of the Government’s Winter Sport Survival Package. When the country emerges from the pandemic the Premiership clubs will continue to play a pivotal role in the future health of the nation. We see these loans as a vote of confidence in Premiership Rugby and our clubs to be able to fulfil that role.

On behalf of everyone involved in Premiership Rugby I’d like to thank Sport England, the Department for Digital Culture, Media and Sport, HM Treasury and the Government more broadly for their work to safeguard our sport.

Chair of the independent Board, Sir Ian Cheshire said:

Rugby union is a sport of significant profile and one which relies on much of its income coming through spectators, so the pandemic has had an especially damaging financial impact on its top-tier men’s clubs.

Alongside the funding that has already gone to grassroots clubs and professional women’s rugby, the confirmation of this funding for men’s Premiership Rugby clubs is pivotal in helping these clubs continue to operate while carrying the season through to its end.

The £300 million winter phase of the Government’s Sport Survival Package is focused on helping those major spectator sports severely impacted by coronavirus restrictions survive the winter.

In addition to support for men’s Championship, women’s and grassroots rugby union, over recent weeks funding has also been provided to National League and women’s football, badminton, basketball, netball and ice hockey.

Submissions for support have been made from individual sports to an independent decision-making Board, supported by Sport England.

The Sport Survival Package is the most generous bespoke support from any Government for its domestic sport sector in the world. It comes as part of the sector benefiting from more than £1.5 billion worth of business support that has been made available by the Government, including the furlough scheme, business rates relief and business interruption loan scheme that has helped many sports clubs and leisure businesses to survive.

Earlier this month the Chancellor announced a further £300 million of support via the Sport Survival Package that is expected to benefit major summer spectator sports such as cricket, tennis and horse racing, as the path out of lockdown continues and sports stadia initially open at reduced capacities. Further details, including how cash will be distributed, how organisations can apply and timeframes, will be announced by Sport England in the coming weeks.

Further confirmations of funding from the Sports Winter Survival Package will be made in due course.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

A detailed factsheet on how the Sport Winter Survival Package works and the criteria when assessing applicants has been published by Sport England. Read it here.

£300 million of extra funding is to be invested to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s homes through energy efficiency and low carbon heating schemes.

The funding will focus on delivering energy saving upgrades and low carbon heating to homes through local authorities in England, meaning tens of thousands more low-income households will be able to be upgraded.

The Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme launched last year will close to new applications on 31 March at 5pm. The scheme was designed to provide a short-term economic boost while tackling our contribution to climate change. Applications made before the end of March deadline will be processed.

Today’s announcement takes the total government funding for energy efficiency and low carbon heating in 2021/22 to over £1.3 billion, with the remainder of the funding having been pledged through the decarbonisation fund. This is up from the £1 billion announced in the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan and exceeds the Government’s manifesto commitment in these early years of the parliament.

Home upgrades can help households save over £300 a year on their energy bills. This announcement is part of the Government’s manifesto commitment to pledge over £9 billion to increase the energy efficiency of homes, schools and hospitals to work to build back greener, which will support around 58,000 jobs.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said:

The Green Homes Grants play a vital part in cutting carbon emissions from the country’s homes and helping save people money on their bills.

Today’s funding boost will mean even more households in England can access this scheme through their local authority.

This takes our total investment in 2021/22 to over £1.3 billion and gives installers the certainty they need to plan ahead, create new jobs and train the next generation of builders, plumbers and tradespeople.

The original £500 million Green Homes Grant Local Authority Delivery Scheme is already helping around 50,000 households in England with an annual income of under £30,000 save hundreds of pounds each year on their energy bills by making their homes more energy efficient.

Through the extended scheme, tens of thousands more households on incomes of less than £30,000 will not have to make any financial contribution to energy efficiency improvements to their homes.

Delivered through the Green Homes Grant Local Authority Delivery Scheme and Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Demonstrator, this will include green home improvements such as deep insulation, heat pumps and solar panels, helping cut over 70,000 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere each year.

Through the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution and the Energy White Paper, the Government has set how it plans to decarbonise the nation’s buildings, including its aim to deploy 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028, and to get as many homes as possible to Energy Performance Certificate Band C by 2035.

Decarbonising the country’s roughly 30 million buildings is essential if the UK is to meet its commitments to eliminating its contribution to climate change by 2050.

The UK Government will roll out the green carpet for some of the world’s most powerful executives and heads of major institutions at a Global Investment Summit (GIS) later this year.

Hosted by the Prime Minister and supported by members of the Royal Family, the summit will galvanise foreign investment in the UK’s green industries of the future ahead of COP26 in November.

Taking place in October, the one-day meeting is expected to catalyse billions of pounds of investment by attracting hundreds of the world’s leading businesses and investment A-listers to London and Windsor Castle.

By showcasing the very best of the UK’s clean technologies and innovative companies, the summit will also drive forward the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan for a green recovery, demonstrating how £12 billion of government investment is creating and supporting up to 250,000 highly-skilled green jobs in the UK, and spurring more three times as much private sector investment by 2030.

The summit will also underpin why the UK is a global hub for green technology and finance, and make the case for global investment in UK companies, whether it’s in the mass-scale production of electric vehicle batteries in the Midlands and the North of England, or developing the first town heated entirely by hydrogen by the end of the decade.

International Trade Secretary, Liz Truss, said:

The UK was one of the first governments in the world to set a net zero target by 2050 and we are still leading the global shift to clean economic growth.

From wind turbines in Scotland to hydrogen development in Wales, the Global Investment Summit will be a fantastic opportunity to secure investment deals into the best of British green industry, allowing us to build back better, stronger and greener.

We look forward to rolling out the green carpet for some of the world’s leading businesses, helping to drive investment into all corners of the country.

Minister for Investment, Gerry Grimstone, said:

The UK is one of the best investment destinations in the world and we are thrilled to be hosting a Global Investment Summit that will boost green investment, jobs and growth.

Around the world, investors are looking to sustainability, whether that be in technology, real estate and construction, finance, automotive or energy. Individuals and businesses are heightening their interest in industries of the future, and there is no better place to invest than in the UK’s already vibrant clean and green industries.

The summit builds on the success of the newly-established UK Office for Investment, which recently secured a landmark agreement between Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company and the UK Government for a £1bn commitment to life sciences.

The UK remains one of the most attractive investment destinations in the world and our foreign direct investment (FDI) stock levels reached £1.6 trillion by the end of 2019. Since 2017, FDI into the UK has created 189,710 jobs, including 3,513 in the renewable energy sector.

The summit also will help drive further investment into every UK nation and region, reinvigorating our industrial heartlands and complementing the Government’s recently established Trade and Investment Hubs, which will channel the economic benefits of international trade directly into Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the North of England.

Earlier this month, government-led research showed exports supported 6.5m jobs across the UK, 74% of which were outside London. The research estimated jobs directly and indirectly supported by exports paid around 7% higher than the national median, with Office for National Statistics estimating that goods exporting businesses are also 21% more productive.

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