Grant Shapps has signalled that the UK will introduce coronavirus screening at airports, after the boss of Heathrow called for the introduction of compulsory temperature checks.

The Transport Secretary said that such measures “must be part of the plan going forward” but indicated they would be introduced in the Government’s "next phase" of its response to the pandemic.

Mr Shapps said: "As we come out of this and into the next phase at a future point, we will continue to keep the excellent medical and scientific advice we receive under review to say whether those procedures at airports should change.

"Although it must be part of the plan going forward, I think it is probably more useful during the phase of test, track and trace that the Health Secretary was talking about yesterday."

However, he noted that countries which have banned flights - such as the United States and Italy - had “not weathered the coronavirus storm any better”.

Heathrow's Chief Executive Officer John Holland-Kaye had earlier called for temperature checks at airports, as well as 'health passports' to prove passengers are fit to travel.

Currently the UK operates an open border policy and there are no checks on passengers flying into UK airports.

The Health Secretary Matt Hancock previously suggested increased measures could be introduced once the infection rate begins to lower domestically.

He said: "It is not, I'm advised by the epidemiologists, it is not an epidemiologically significant route of transmission in the UK because the current incidence is high.

"Of course, if we succeed in getting the incidence of transmission lower and much lower, which I hope we will, then you have to ask the question of how to protect the UK from people who have been in a place where that incidence of transmission is much higher."