UK Border: Covid Protections Debate

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Department: Home Office

UK Border: Covid Protections

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts
Tuesday 26th January 2021

(3 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Priti Patel Portrait Priti Patel
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My hon. Friend makes an important point. I do not want to speculate about new measures; he will bear with me, as he has heard me say this a number of times. There are processes around making decisions, and clearly, when changes come forward, the Government will announce the details in due course.

Andrew Gwynne Portrait Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]
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It is not hindsight. The Home Secretary knows that the Home Affairs Committee, on which I sit, took evidence from New Zealand and Singapore last year about what they were doing to successfully apply effective covid controls at the border. Ten months on, it feels that the Home Secretary is closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. I simply ask her this: why did our measures not work? Did they not go far enough, and does she take any responsibility for that?

Priti Patel Portrait Priti Patel
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As a member of the Select Committee, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that in April last year, we discussed at the Select Committee health measures at the border and the work of the Government. In terms of the effectiveness of the measures, he will be very familiar with all the measures—the statutory instruments, the regulations and the directions to airports, Border Force and the ports. As I and other members of the Government have said throughout, and particularly today, all measures are under review, and that is the right thing to do.