International Travel

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, raises another important point about airport testing and the pre-testing that could be put in place. I am well aware that that is in place in certain countries across the world. The noble Viscount will also be aware that, in the summer, travellers to Greece were denied boarding because they had not filled in their Covid form, as required by the Greek Government 24 hours before arriving in the country. This serves to reiterate to all travellers two things: travel with your eyes open and travel with enough money. It is not as simple as it was before.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I am glad the Minister mentioned travel to Greece. When I went to a Greek island in July, I had to prove I had completed the Greek version of the passenger locator form at check-in, at the boarding gate and on arrival in Greece. When I returned from Greece to the UK, and twice when I returned from Norway in recent weeks, I was not asked if I had even completed the UK passenger locator form at any stage of those journeys, let alone asked to produce it. Why are the Government not as serious about importing Covid-19 from abroad as the Greek Government? Before imposing further restrictions on the British public, should the Government not ensure that existing measures are operating effectively?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Our existing measures are operating effectively. I had the same experience as the noble Lord: I went through the Greek system twice over the summer, on two islands, and found it to be very different in both cases. I do not think there is any country we should hold up as a great way of doing things. However, we are very open to hearing about new approaches and evidence from other countries. As I said in answer to a previous question, Border Force does spot checks on people filling out the PLF and, as I said previously, 4,154 cases have been referred to the police.