Passport and Visa Measures

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, that issue of the UK annoying the EU could also be read both ways. But it is not a question of not welcoming people—it is putting everybody on an equal footing going forward from 1 July.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am mystified. Will the Minister encourage her colleagues to look again—but not in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asks—at making it so that children from all over the world conform to the arrangements currently in force for children in Europe? That is another way of solving the problem. I note that 750,000 children from Germany and France alone have come on an annual basis under the present arrangements. Is she convinced that she could persuade the entertainment, tourism, heritage and cultural institutions of this country looking for a post-Covid boost that the refusal to reconsider this is logical or legitimate?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think what the noble Lord is proposing is to make the rest of the world in line with what we had in the EU—in other words, to have an open borders policy with no passports. The answer is no, I am afraid.