Covid-19 Update

Selaine Saxby Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman raises important points, which are addressed in what I just announced in two ways. First, anybody who has been in a red-list country in the past 10 days must declare it on a passenger locator form. To fail to do so will be an imprisonable offence. Of course, nobody can come directly from a red-list country anyway because those flights have been stopped. That is a critical part of the enforcement of this system.

In addition, the second point that the hon. Gentleman raises is important. There are some countries where a variant of concern is the dominant variant, including in southern Africa and parts of Brazil. There are other countries where there are very small numbers of variants of concern, in the same way as in this country there are thankfully very small numbers of variants of concern. Absolutely, we publish information on a very broad scale. We have to make judgments about what is on the red list, and we will keep it under review.

Different countries have very different levels of genomic sequencing. There are some countries—even developed countries—that have very low levels of genomic sequencing. We have offered to support all countries around the world, so if they want a sample sequenced, we will do it for them to help with this vigilance. The mandated testing arrangements that we have introduced today will help ensure that we can strengthen the epidemiological data on which the judgments about the red list are taken.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con) [V]]

Cases here in North Devon are now down to just 25 per 100,000. What reassurance can my right hon. Friend give me that when the time comes to unlock, the hard work of the people of North Devon will not be undone by an influx of visitors from either home or abroad with new variants? Are options being looked at for local unlocking to enable schools to reopen and some local businesses to restart, given the very low level of community transmission here?

[Matt Hancock]

I am delighted to see that there are some parts of the country where the case rate really has come down a long way—down to 25. It is important for us to make sure we get the levels down across the country. We have seen before that when there are areas that are low, there is spread from elsewhere in the country. The experience of last summer was that tourists travelling to go on holiday within the UK did not contribute to an increase in levels. It was when levels elsewhere got much higher that we saw the transmission to other parts of the country. It is those judgments that will inform the road map proposals that the Prime Minister will set out on 22 February. I wish I could say more in more detail to my hon. Friend, but it is for the Prime Minister to set that out later this month.