Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

To the hon. Gentleman, I would say the following—first of all, this is not my plan; this is a Government plan and Government policy. In terms of the approach that has been taken, the Government have maintained throughout this pandemic that medical and scientific advice, in terms of border measures, are consistent and are now being applied. That is why throughout this entire outbreak—across the whole of Government, working with every Department—we have brought in and identified the right measures. He is right to highlight the impact on business and the economy, which is why I held a roundtable with the transport sector last week. It raised a number of issues about not just quarantine, but business costs and issues around business rates and furlough.

It is not solely for one Department to address these issues, and it is right that we work across Government to look at how we can introduce new measures. As the hon. Gentleman might recall from my statement last week and the questions I answered, I covered potential air bridges, fast testing, immunity passports and how we can digitalise the response at the border. That is a cross-Government response and it is something that all my colleagues across Government, led by the Department for Transport and the Department of Health and Social Care, are currently working on.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State claimed again that this policy is backed by the science. The chief scientific officer says that it is not. Will the Home Secretary please publish today the advice that she received from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies that led her to introduce this irrational jobs and holidays-destroying measure?

[Priti Patel]

I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the comments that I made in the House last week regarding the scientific advice from the Home Office’s own scientific adviser. Of course, that advice will be published.