UK Border: Covid Protections

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on Covid protections at the UK border.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)]

From January 2020, the Government have had a comprehensive strategy for public health measures at the border. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office swiftly discouraged all but essential travel to China and announced that anybody entering the UK from Wuhan should self-isolate for 14 days.

In February, advice from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies recommended that those from Thailand, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Macau, and those who were symptomatic, should also self-isolate, and regulations were introduced to allow officers to detain and direct individuals. In March, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advised against all non-essential travel, initially for 30 days. On 23 March, the Prime Minister advised that everyone should stay at home and travel only for essential purposes.

A raft of measures followed in May, including 14 days’ self-isolation, passenger locator forms and fines for those who failed to comply with those mandatory conditions. In July, the Government announced the introduction of the international travel corridors. The countries on those travel corridor lists were kept under constant review and removed as the risk of importing covid-19 increased.

However, as the safeguarding of the vaccine roll-out has become the Government’s priority, we have introduced stricter controls. In December, following the identification of the new variant of the virus, we introduced a travel ban on arrivals from South Africa, later extending to a ban on South America and Portugal. We suspended travel corridors and required all passengers to show proof of a negative coronavirus test before they embark on their journey to the UK. Anyone arriving must also self-isolate for 10 days.

Those new measures are being robustly enforced to keep the public safe. Passengers must continue to fill in a passenger locator form, and those who fail to comply face a £500 fine. Carriers are under a legal obligation to check that each passenger has proof of a negative test, and are liable for a fine of £2,000 for not complying. To date, Border Force has checked an estimated 3.7 million passenger locator forms, issued more than 2,300 fixed penalty notices and referred more than 22,000 cases to the police.

The UK has a world-leading vaccination programme that should all be proud of. It is therefore right that the Government continue to do everything we can to protect the roll-out of the vaccine from new strains of the virus. We keep all measures under review and will not hesitate to take further action to protect the public.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and to the Home Secretary for her response. It is good to see her in her place, and I hope we will see her there again to answer questions about how 400,000 police records were deleted and give us the promised update on that matter.

The efforts of the British people and the hopes of the vaccine are being undermined by the Government’s inability to secure our borders against covid. Conservative incompetence is putting our country at risk. Labour is calling for a comprehensive hotel quarantine system, with protections to secure us against new strains. It cannot be restricted to only a handful of countries, leaving gaping holes in our defences against different strains of the virus emerging around the world. The Government must also announce a sector support package for aviation.

The Government’s proposals being briefed to the press are half-baked and will be ineffective. As ever, it is too little, too late. From the start of the pandemic, the Government’s handling of measures at the border has been chaotic. There has not been a comprehensive strategy as the Home Secretary suggested. Indeed, from January last year to 23 March, only 273 people were formally quarantined. I wrote to the Home Secretary in April and asked her to learn the lessons of that, but still by May the UK was an international outlier, with virtually no travel controls.

When formal quarantining was introduced in June, the policy was so badly handled that it was ineffective. It is not being properly enforced, and the Government’s own figures show that only 3% of people are being successfully contacted to ensure that they are observing the quarantine. Even the introduction of mandatory testing was delayed because the Government could not get the structures in place.

On the briefed plans for hotel quarantine, can the Home Secretary confirm when formal plans will be introduced? Will they be comprehensive or limited to a few countries? If they are limited, how will that be acceptable when the quarantining system is in such disarray? Put simply, what confidence can the public have in the Government on this issue if Ministers are not prepared to learn from their own mistakes?

[Priti Patel]

Let me begin by saying that I welcome the hon. Gentleman giving us a chance to discuss these measures. He has also mentioned the police national computer, about which we will provide an update in due course; I can give him that reassurance.

There has been a comprehensive strategy across Government, and it dates back to 27 January last year. The hon. Gentleman will be fully aware and sighted of that. It started with travel advice from the FCO, followed by guidance from SAGE from 10 February last year. New statutory instruments, including regulations, were introduced, and there were new powers for the medical profession and the police to detain individuals carrying symptoms of coronavirus. Guidance was issued to airports in February last year around how to handle coronavirus, and there was a flurry of travel advice. That was supported by self-isolation measures and, in March, the Coronavirus Act 2020. There was a parcel of mandatory quarantine, passenger locator forms, shutting the border with Denmark when the new strain was identified, test and release, banning flights from South Africa, pre-travel tests and carrier liability.

This is a comprehensive approach and strategy. It is important to note that throughout, when it comes to coronavirus and measures at the border that involve other Departments, the measures set out have naturally come with logistical and operational challenges. I take this opportunity to thank our operational partners—our airports, in particular, and Border Force, which has been on the frontline day in and day out, checking passengers. I mentioned earlier the number of checks, and Border Force is now checking 100% of passengers arriving in the UK. We have the isolation assurance service, which is increasing the number of checks to 5,000 a day. The National Police Chiefs’ Council is already surging capacity to provide those checks.

The hon. Gentleman has referred to newspaper reports and speculation. It would be wrong of me to speculate about any measures that are not in place right now, as policy is being developed. He spoke about quarantining, and he claims that the Labour party has been calling for tougher restrictions. If I may say so, his party should reflect on its position. In August last year, the hon. Gentleman himself called quarantine “a blunt tool”. In July, the shadow Transport Secretary, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), said that quarantine measures should be “lessened”. In June last year, the Leader of the Opposition also said that the system was “a blunt instrument”.

Measures are always under review, and it is right that the Government review all measures. As I have said, we have a world-leading vaccination programme. We are proud of that programme, and the Government will do everything that they can to protect that vaccine from new strains of the virus.