Covid-19

Philippa Whitford Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for the way in which he has raised his question. The insurance industry makes its decisions in a commercial way, and obviously we and the Transport Secretary are liaising very closely with it, but certainly the call has been made to the Foreign Office to give as clear advice as possible. So we are advising, not least with the Easter holidays coming up, against all but essential travel globally. We are not going to make decisions for individual people, families or schools, but it seems to me that those are the kinds of trips that would now have to be looked at, and we would expect the insurance and the airline industries to follow, based on that very clear advice that we have now given.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

The Foreign Secretary mentioned that the Government have been consulting with the G7, but they have not been consulting with European Governments through the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. May I ask: apart from ideological reasons, why not? It is very concerned that the focus here has been on behavioural science and not on epidemiology.

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Lady asks a perfectly reasonable question. May I reassure her that we are taking the best scientific advice that we have got in the UK? The circumstances in different countries will change. Part of that is about the timing and the peak within which coronavirus hits an individual country. She talked about co-operation with EU partners. I am consistently on the phone talking to all our European partners about all these issues, whether that is the multilateral drive to tackle coronavirus with support for vulnerable countries, research and development, or the particular logistical issues with getting constituents home. The diplomacy with our European friends has never been more intense.