Covid-19: UK Border Health Measures

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend makes important points. I pay tribute to the aviation industry, which is dynamic and innovative. When we look at the work it has done over decades when it comes to keeping the public safe in aviation travel, it has been world leading, and that is exactly what we want to do in the work that we undertake with the sector. This is of course an international crisis, and no one person or organisation has a bespoke way of working through this crisis for the aviation sector. My final point is that planes are of course still flying and goods are coming into the United Kingdom. I have made the point about export goods, which are still very important for the aviation sector and for the freight sector in particular, and that is of course important not only for the health of our economy but the way in which we can continue to innovate.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The Home Secretary has made much of the scientific advice earlier in the pandemic that it was

“clear that such measures would have made little difference”.

Will she acknowledge that, as we have an acknowledged death toll approaching 50,000 people, perhaps that little difference might have been significant to a lot of people in this country at that time? Does she now regret not making that little difference? Will she please answer the question from the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) about whether that advice and the advice to which she refers today both came from SAGE?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady will be well aware that we are working not just with SAGE but with representatives of SAGE in Departments across Government, and that is the scientific advice that we as Ministers are guided by. It is important to consider this in terms of the entire period from January to March and the enhanced measures that were taken at the border. It is important to recall and be very mindful of the enhanced public health protection measures that were undertaken. Had those measures not been put in place, the severity of what could have followed could have been even more damaging than we have seen over the recent months.