Covid-Secure Borders

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

During the covid pandemic, it is vital that we have ways to manage our borders to allow for travel where it is safe, as well as protecting our population at home. However, this motion talks about the UK’s borders, but we know that the position is not that straightforward.

International travel has sadly been yet another example of a failure of our four-nations approach to tackling the pandemic across the UK. Until very recent weeks, different rules were in place across the four nations, with travellers from some countries arriving in England and being able to quarantine at home, while those arriving in Scotland, for example, needed to quarantine in a hotel. Even now, when we are seeing an alignment in the traffic light system, confusing as it is, there are differences with Scotland. For example, it does not have a test to release scheme. Just because Scotland has done it differently does not mean that it has always done it better. The Scottish Government, like the UK Government, acted too slowly last summer, failing to protect against new variants entering the country or to set up a test, trace and isolate infrastructure effectively to prevent a second wave. During that time, the quarantined travellers’ spot-check target was missed for four months in a row, which was highlighted by my colleague and friend the MSP for North-East Fife.

What we have seen across the UK is no clarity or certainty, which is exactly what is required to enable public confidence. There is no clarity or certainty for the tourism industry or for those wanting to reunite with family members abroad who see a narrative of desperate holidaymakers and watch others here with their loved ones. There is insufficient support for those who need to isolate and still not enough funding available for tourism businesses that have no customers. This is not just about vaccine success in the UK. UK-inbound tourism is vital to North-East Fife, particularly in relation to golf, which I have highlighted several times in this House. This lack of clarity and certainty devastates the industry, with cancellations in 2020 and now in 2021.

Most of all, a lack of a meaningful four-nations approach leads to confusion. If people do not understand the rules, or do not understand why the rules are different across the UK, despite best intentions, they end up not following them. I was contacted by one constituent, a seafarer, who was subject to different rules and quarantine, depending on where he returned to in the UK. He was reaching out to my office in the hope that I could provide clarity, but there are simply inconsistencies. We see the risks of that confusion now as the delta variant, which many have already spoken about, has quickly become the most prevalent variant across the UK in recent weeks.

If the UK Government had worked properly with the Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and taken a more joined-up approach, clear rules could have been agreed and adhered to consistently. This problem will not be solved until the covid-19 pandemic has been tackled globally, and although I welcome the UK Government and G7 pledges on vaccinations, they are simply not enough. Until the pandemic is tackled globally, we need to find a way for safe travel, proper border checks, clear rules and support for those who need it, and to do that in the UK, we need the four nations working together.