Covid-19: International Travel

Huw Merriman Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I thank the hon. Lady very much for—I think—welcoming the statement. I understand that she has not been in post for very long, but she will be aware of how her predecessors simultaneously called for us to tighten up and close the borders while relaxing and opening them, often on the same day or a few days apart. I understand that she has recently come to the post, but, if she does not mind my suggestion, there is one thing that she can do current day. She may be able to speak to her Welsh Labour governmental counterparts, who are a constant drag on opening up aviation. I hear that she is very keen that we move ahead with today’s plan; I hope she will be able to assist by persuading them to move a little more promptly.

The hon. Member quite rightly says that we need a toolbox to respond, as I mentioned in the statement. She is absolutely right about that; we do need a toolbox going forward, which is a question not just for the UK. This morning I was talking to the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, who co-chairs a World Health Organisation body working exactly on the global response. One of the most important things to stress in my statement, which might have been missed, is that we believe the time is right to move from individuals being checked as they come over our border—as we know, whatever the variant, eventually it gets in, as every country has found—to a global system of surveillance that is every bit as good as what we have here. “World leading” is applied often in the UK, but we genuinely have a world-leading version of surveillance, through the amount of coronavirus testing we can do with genome sequencing, and we are helping other countries through practical applications to catch up.

The hon. Member also asked what the Government are doing to honour the bid we made at the G7 and elsewhere on coronavirus. I gently point out that the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed by Oxford, has been used in more arms than any other vaccine in the world—I think I am right in saying that about 2.5 billion people have been vaccinated with it. That is a huge contribution, in addition to COVAX and all the other donations that we have made and will continue to make.

I am pleased to hear, I think, that the whole House welcomes the plan to unlock and to set Britain free.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Not only is today’s announcement another example of our living with covid; this is also a landmark day for international travel, a sector that has been absolutely decimated over the last couple of years. Today’s news is surely the evidence it needs to show that people should now feel confident to book with certainty. With that in mind, will the Secretary of State ensure a culture across Whitehall so that if there are bumps in the road, international travel will not be the sector that has to be made an example of, and so that we continue to support international travel and all the fantastic people who work in it?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As we have learned more about the pandemic, as it becomes endemic, it is quite right that our response should be different—a moment ago I mentioned shifting from individual testing at the border to a global system of testing—so I do give him that commitment. We are now looking to work with a new toolbox that will help to set out a framework. We will of course always act quickly if we have to, but I believe that the days of having to go back to big lockdowns at the borders are past.