Originally Posted by
KARFA
The new SI
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel and Public Health Information) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 states if you arrive in England prior to it coming in to force then you apply the The Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (England) Regulations 2020 as if the amendments by this new SI have not been made. For arrivals before this SI is in force they will continue to be subject to the unamended The Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (England) Regulations 2020 in which exempt countries do not exist, and therefore all requirements for self-isolation will continue for them even beyond the point when this new SI does come in to force.
That would be my reading too, so unfortunately, I would share
kingstontoon's worry (and as suggested by his quote of my previous message, emphasises the sort of embroglio for which I thought one would need to wait for the specific regulation to be published at the time).
The other big question is of course why create that oddity. One option is that this is simply sloppiness, but personally, I suspect it might be a more practical reason related to not wanting to revisit files that may have been already treated by health authorities as it would likely require manual updates to do so.
Either way, I'd echo
cws's suggestion re day trip to an exempt country to "stop the clock" and end the quarantine, but also to emphasise that I fully empathise with the OP's frustration at the mixed messages and I think it was poor form and detrimental to public trust to have a minister say yes for the statutory instrument to then say no... It would have been both better and wiser for him to say "I don't know".