The government is going to continue taking a ’cautious approach’ over border restrictions, a senior government minister told a business roundtable.

Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan said that as things stand at the moment it was ’unlikely’ to be before next spring, or even later, before any decisions might be made over fully opening up the frontier.

The Ayre and Michael MHK said: ’Our job is a difficult one at the moment, making those decisions and, yes, at some point in the future, the borders will have to be opened up.

’We can only operate in the short to medium term at the moment and it is unlikely to be until the spring that some of those decisions are being made.’

Mr Cannan also acknowledged the decision on whether next year’s TT goes ahead would be a ’critical decision’ and will need to be made at some point.

Lars Ugland, chairman of the Steam Packet Company, said in his view the borders will have to reopen at some point.

He said: ’To get more business to the island we have to open the borders again.’ He said the island should consider the way Sweden has handled the crisis but added: ’I think that the government has done really well in controlling the situation but how long can we go on for before opening the borders again?’

Richard Butt, editor of Isle of Man Newspapers, who chaired the Topical Talks discussion, the first since last March, sponsored by Manx Telecom, said it appeared ’most people in the island do not want to reopen the borders and are very hesitant about doing anything like that’.

Mr Cannan agreed that many people ’are not going to want the borders fully opened’.

But he also acknowledged there were all sorts of issues and ’tension points’ including the fact many people who had come to live and work here had not seen family members for many months.

He said it was important to ’push forward in a sensible and measured way and have sensible and measured discussions’.

Mr Cannan said: ’For the time being I think we should take a cautious approach until we get to a position whereby either globally the position has changed fundamentally or there has been a significant development in the next six months or so, such as a vaccine or a significant advance that means there is a drug available that really reduces the impact.’ Mr Cannan pointed out that he was not convinced the UK, and indeed other countries, could withstand another lockdown.

He insisted the island ’broadly has stable economic conditions’.

Greg Ellison, chief executive officer, Capital International. said the ’courage’ shown in keeping the borders closed had ’served the island well’.

He said in Malta, for instance, the authorities ’caved in’ to the tourism pressure in June and having been Covid-free they got inundated again almost overnight.

Mr Cannan said the government and the Council of Ministers was exploring ’whether we can take steps forward and we continue to assess the position.’

Mr Cannan continued: ’I want to get that message out, let’s get the conversation out, that we have to adjust ourselves to the fact that there is unlikely to be a really significant change in the position until possibly the spring and maybe even the summer.’

Gary Lamb, chief executive, Manx Telecom, said people adjusted to the fact that this year would in certain ways be a ’write-off’ but it could be more challenging when it came to adjusting to next spring for border decisions.

Mr Cannan added that generally ’society will have a big say because people will choose to make decisions that may or may not be in line with what the government thinks’.

’I think everybody is a lot more experienced now, we have systems in place that we did not have before and there is a lot more recognition that we don’t need to panic.’

Greg Ellison said the enforcement of rules had worked in the island.

’Here, where people have breached the quarantine rules they have ended up in prison.’

’We must keep the focus on enforcement.’