Daniel Kawczynski
Main Page: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)Department Debates - View all Daniel Kawczynski's debates with the Department for Transport
(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
I absolutely will do that. I know that Border Force has been working hard, sometimes under difficult conditions. Many people do not realise that every time there was a change in which countries were added or removed or rules changed—there were hundreds of them—that often required not just software but hardware changes. As a passenger put their passport down on an egate, it was reading not only their passport for permission to enter but checking the passenger locator form, their vaccination status and how they had filled in the form—it was doing an awful lot of work behind the scenes. Updates, unfortunately, commonly caused breaks in that system. As far as I know, we were the only country in the world to even attempt anything as ambitious on e-gates—I certainly came across no equivalent in North America or Europe. It is really important that much of that bureaucracy will be removed as that should smooth things out. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), I will discuss Border Force resourcing with the Home Secretary.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
I think that everybody in the House will warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement about extra vaccines being distributed around the world. Will he ensure that a list of countries receiving them is put in the Library for us to check? Will he assure me that a good number of very poor Commonwealth countries are prioritised in the programme?
Grant Shapps
It is certainly the case that the vast majority of the vaccinations through Oxford-AstraZeneca have gone to mid and lower-income countries. Many will have been used by Commonwealth countries. I should have answered in detail the point made on that by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh). I will place a note in the House of Commons Library to provide a breakdown of where those have gone and answer the further question about how the 100 million is worked out. But I think all of us in the House, regardless of which side we sit on, can be incredibly proud of this country’s literally global lead in protecting the world against coronavirus.