International Travel

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

For the sake of completeness, I will mention Ireland, Iceland, Lithuania, Norway and Slovenia, which have either removed or will shortly remove measures to put themselves in the same position. I say “of leading economies” because I am not aware of any other G7 economy that has gone as far as us in scrapping restrictions and making it easier to travel.

The inquiry will be there to learn the lessons from covid, and it is incredibly important that it does so not just in relation to travel but across everything that happened during covid. Of course, we want to learn the lessons because, without learning the lessons of the past, we can never improve things for the future.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I have learned from being in this House that when the Government do something good and well, few Opposition Back Benchers turn up—we have only one today—and the three shadow Ministers have heckled from a sedentary position because they know that the Government have done a good job. Is it not true that the Prime Minister’s leadership by getting the vaccine and unlocking our society has allowed us to have freedom day for travel this Friday? Does the Secretary of State have to sign a piece of paper or lay a statutory instrument before the House? If he just needs to sign a piece of paper, why does he not do so tonight so that we can start tomorrow?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We all remember Margaret Keenan receiving that very first properly approved vaccination in the entire world, and that happened in this country. It was not just that: we also got the vaccination programme out first and, critically, the booster programme out first and showed world leadership. Actually—this is partly in response to the comments of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh); I did not pick up this point—2.6 billion people have received the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccination, so we have made more of a contribution than any other country in the world. It is absolutely right to recognise all of that.

I do not know the technicalities of quite what happens—I imagine that we must sign an SI—but I do know that we need a few days to alert everyone to change the systems for Border Force and ensure that people already away can adjust to the change. However, it is only three more sleeps, is it not? I hope that my hon. Friend can contain himself.