Covid Security at UK Borders

Ben Everitt Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be called, Madam Deputy Speaker. I believe they call this the headline slot, so thank you very much.

I am old enough to remember the Labour party’s position on free movement, so I am excited to speak in this Opposition day debate on our borders. The motion calls on the Government to

“immediately introduce a comprehensive…quarantine system for all arrivals into the UK”,

which does not seem to fit entirely with the free movement of people that we know and love from Labour policy.

There are two things that I want to major on in the short time I have to address the House tonight: the practicalities and the politics of the motion before us. I will start with the practicalities. Milton Keynes, as the House will know, was host to one of the coronavirus repatriation centres when, almost this time last year—time has flown—repatriations were taking place for British nationals and their dependants from Wuhan over to the UK. Quite frankly, it is a bit of a palaver getting people into converted hotel accommodation safely, given what we knew then and what we know now about the virus. I wonder whether Her Majesty’s official Opposition have clearly thought through how we get arrivals from overseas into hotel accommodation in the UK safely and in a covid-secure manner, because what they are suggesting is quite a logistical exercise.

Moving on from the practicalities, I turn to the politics. I mentioned that I was old enough to remember Labour’s last policy on borders, and I am old enough to remember the last time that an inadvertent policy position threatened the Northern Ireland protocol. Perhaps the Opposition Front Benchers might want to clarify how the common travel area between the UK and Ireland would be affected by their proposals. Would this be another EU diplomatic incident moment? Are they riding roughshod over the Northern Ireland protocol?

Quite frankly, I think we have some of the strictest measures in the world to prevent new strains of coronavirus from entering the UK. We have pre-departure testing, passenger locator forms, quarantine on arrival for at least 10 days, and a complete ban on flights from the highest-risk countries. What are the Opposition offering that is better than that?