International Travel

Debate between Grant Shapps and Tahir Ali

Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to express concerns. The SNP spokesman has set out its opening position—or maybe a couple of different positions. I encourage all parts of the UK to come together on this. It is incredibly confusing for passengers, who could now travel to Newcastle or Manchester according to an Edinburgh spokesman, and, as has been pointed out, that takes money out of the Scottish economy; it threatens jobs in Scotland and threatens airline capacity, and the faster we can get this resolved, the better.

[Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State explain why my constituents suffered immeasurably from the punitive measures imposed by his Government? Many of them were unable to be with family members at their time of greatest need or to attend the funerals of their loved ones, and many could not afford the hotel quarantine rates and furthermore that was then increased. The criteria for keeping Pakistan and Bangladesh on the red list were made up on a daily basis, and the facilities in the hotels that many of my constituents returned to were abysmal. There was no justification for punishing the British Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, who lent their votes to the Conservative party at the last election. Will the Secretary of State now apologise to them for the punitive measures imposed on them unjustifiably?

[Grant Shapps]

I am really sorry the hon. Gentleman has gone down this route. I was following him at first, particularly when he talked about the sadness of not being able to see friends and close family in Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere on the red list, but to come here and claim that the Joint Biosecurity Centre’s work is somehow based on politics dishonours his argument and I encourage him to consider whether that is appropriate. I know there has been a push to politicise this, but the JBC has to look at all the numbers; it has to look at the level of infection, the amount of vaccines administrated and the capacity of different countries to carry out sequencing of the genome, and I have to say that is a disappointing argument to hear.