London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Minister rules out wider use of Covid isolation exemption in England

Minister rules out wider use of Covid isolation exemption in England

George Eustice says new rule for food sector will not extend to other areas, despite industry concerns

Exemptions enabling more than 10,000 people in England’s food sector to avoid self-isolation will not be extended to other sectors, a minister has said, despite industry concerns that “cumbersome” new rules will cause confusion.

The current wave of the pandemic sweeping across Britain was also likely to get worse before it gets better, said George Eustice, the environment secretary, who added that the government was “most worried” about when the two- to three-week lag in hospitalisations kicked in after infections.

Some workers in England from 16 key sectors, including health, transport and energy, will not have to isolate after being pinged by the Covid app, as it was revealed that more than 600,000 people in England and Wales were sent self-isolation alerts last week.

Eustice also ruled out the possibility of the exemption being extended to the hospitality industry before the planned date of 16 August. “The reason we’ve made a special exception for food is for very obvious reasons – we need to make sure that we maintain our food supply, we will never take risks with our food supply,” he told Sky News.


“You also have to bear in mind why we’re doing this and we are trying to still just dampen the pace and the velocity at which this infection is spreading because we have to keep a very close eye on those hospitalisations,” he said.

“We know that the most important thing is to ensure that those main arteries in our food supply chain keep working, that the lorries keep going from depots to get goods to store and that the food manufacturers can continue to manufacture the goods to get it to the depots.”

An email to those affected by the new rules on Friday made clear that food wholesalers distribution centres and food processing plants as well as manufacturing sites would be included among those able to exempt workers from isolating. It said supermarkets’ distribution centres would be the first to be able to take advantage of the new regime this week with other sites planned to start next week.

Industry insiders said the latest apparent change in the detail of the rules was good news but only added to widespread confusion.

James Bielby, the chief executive of the Federation of Wholesale Distributors, said that the email from Defra officials made clear that the new testing regime would be extended to other food supply chain workplaces “over the coming weeks”.

He said this indicated that the 16 August deadline for lifting the requirement for isolation for those who have been double vaccinated could be under threat. “It looks as though they might extend the pingdemic,” he said, adding that it appeared the government was planning to rely on the new testing regime to reduce the impact of the extension of the isolation rules.

But with companies across the economy struggling with worker absences, representatives of Britain’s manufacturers expressed disappointment that “huge swathes of the sector” were not included in the simplified rules for self-isolation brought forward by the government.

“The new rules do allow for exceptions in critical cases in sectors not specifically named, but this will just add an extra layer of confusion on top of the complex rules the industry is already struggling to understand,” said Stephen Phipson, the CEO of Make UK.

He described the process of requiring companies to liaise with government departments to sign off each named employee as “cumbersome and time consuming”, and said the “sensible course of action would be to bring forward the 16 August date”. Phipson contrasted allowing people to mingle in nightclubs with companies being unable to make “sensible adjustments” for vaccinated employees.

Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of UKHospitality, said the sector faced “a summer of venue closures and reduced service, when we should be at our peak”.

Shops and supermarkets have meanwhile committed to giving the government regular data on how many workers are absent. One retail source said the industry hoped that the government would act to alleviate the problems once it had studied further data showing the impact.


Leading retailers and their suppliers said there had been pockets of temporary food shortages in stores as the rise in number of Covid cases, and the associated need for workers to self-isolate after coming into contact with someone with the virus, added to existing staffing and supply issues caused by Brexit and this week’s heatwave.

Helen Dickinson, the chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, which counts most of the UK’s supermarket chains among its members, said the government may have to take further action in the next few days if the situation worsened.

Eustice, asked if the government had been concerned about food shortages, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it had become aware last week of late deliveries and “order fulfilment” problems.

As shoppers shared images of empty shelves blamed on a shortage of workers, the government also announced on Thursday that a pilot daily testing programme would be expanded to up to 500 food and drink supply chain employers, though retail staff in supermarkets will not qualify.

It was easier to manage staff shortages on a store level, Eustice said when asked why supermarkets were not included in exemptions, adding that it would involve thousands of different shops and many more people.

Two jabs mandatory for English nightclubs from end of September, says PM


In terms of how the exemptions would apply to the food sector, Eustice said the government had identified close to 500 key sites, including about 170 supermarket depots and a couple of hundred manufacturers such as bread makers and dairy companies. “All of the people working in those key strategic sites, distribution depots and those manufacturing facilities will be able to use this scheme, and probably well over 10,000 people,” he said.

Asked whether the coronavirus situation was likely to get worse before it gets better, he replied: “Absolutely.” He told Sky News: “It is likely to because hospitalisations do follow the infection rate by two to three weeks and so that’s why we’re doing this.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
×