Covid-19: Aligning UK and Foreign Entry and Return Requirements Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Lord Scriven
Main Page: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Scriven's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Covid-19: Aligning UK and Foreign Entry and Return Requirements
Lord Scriven Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, the director-general of the International Air Transport Association has said that the Government now have
“no coherent policy on international travel.”
To prove him wrong, can the Minister state what data the Government are using to determine the positivity rate for the beta variant on mainland France, and what that data shows for the cases of the beta variant on mainland France?
Lord Bethell (Con) [V]
My Lords, the noble Lord’s question has behind it a genuine dilemma. The amount of genomic sequencing in countries around the world is limited. No other country has the degree of genomic sequencing that we have here in the UK, and we do not have perfect vision of what variants of concern are present in other countries, including even in France. We work very closely with Governments, including that of France, to have access to whatever data they have—but, to an extent, we are operating with imperfect data.