Yvette Cooper
Main Page: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley)Department Debates - View all Yvette Cooper's debates with the Home Office
(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Throughout the pandemic, we should all reflect on the way in which it has changed all our lives, but also on how it has touched our lives in many, many ways, and sad ways. All our measures have been under review, and that will continue at the border and with regard to the vaccine roll-out, as my hon. Friend points out.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) [V]
The Home Secretary lifted all the self-isolation rules for travellers on 13 March last year. In the following 10 days, up to 10,000 people with covid arrived in the UK, making the pandemic worse. Lessons must be learnt this time. Further delays in strengthening quarantine and testing are a serious problem. Can she tell me why we saw crowded scenes at Heathrow on Friday at the UK border—the very opposite of quarantine? Is it true that for months people have been waiting for hours in those queues in unsafe circumstances? Is it true that the Border Force lifted some of the checks that she just said were being applied to 100% of passengers, because those queues were unsafe?
Priti Patel
The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee will be aware, with regard to her comments about last year, that the advice from Government was to stay at home, and clearly the point of that was not to travel. She asked, rightly, about the scenes at Heathrow airport at the weekend, and the fact is that those queues materialised because of the compliance checks that Border Force had put in place. I would like to thank Heathrow airport, because, as she will also be aware, we—colleagues in Border Force—work with the airport operators on social distancing measures at the airport. That is a joint piece of work that takes place, and all airports take responsibility for their work and how they manage their flows. Border Force, in particular, is there to enforce the checks, as it does now, achieving 100% coverage. It is also now working with London Heathrow airport’s assistant organisation—its contractors—HAL, which is also working as a triage function to make sure that people are being checked. I think the British public and the travelling public would just like that reassurance and that welcome news that checks are in place. If that means queues, obviously, we are working with airport operators in terms of how they are supported and triaged as arrivals come into the airport.