Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend makes some very good, strong and important points that, absolutely, the British public support the removal of foreign national offenders, those who come to our country to cause harm, and also those who are, quite frankly, making asylum claims that are not legitimate. We intend to introduce legislation later this year. I have spoken frequently about the need for a firm but fair asylum system, with fairness to target those who genuinely need our help. I have already spoken about one new safe and legal route that this Government have supported. Absolutely, fairness is needed, and firmness is needed to stop abuse of our system and to make sure that we remove those who come to our country to create harm and participate in criminality. I should remind my hon. Friend—he will know this—that Labour has been campaigning against that over the past 12 months.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) [V]]

The South African variant has now been identified on many continents, and the risks to the vaccine programme are concerning. Can the Home Secretary confirm, following her letter to me last week, that even under her future plans, the majority of passengers will not be covered by hotel quarantine, no one will be tested on arrival before going on public transport, and less than one in four travellers will get a follow-up phone call check? Is this worrying information correct, and why are there all these gaps?

[Priti Patel]

The answer to the question is no, because as I have repeatedly said in this Chamber throughout the pandemic, all our measures are kept under review. We already have 100% compliance checks taking place at our airports. Ironically, the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) was complaining at me three weeks ago about queues at Heathrow airport, but those queues were there because compliance checks were being undertaken. It is absolutely right that those checks take place, including through the passenger locator form, the pre-departure testing, and the impacts and liabilities that are now on the carriers.

I have already stated that my colleagues across Government will report to the House on the subject of hotel quarantining, but it is really important to say that, yes, there are concerns about new variants. We are working across Government—and, I have to say, a lot of people are working valiantly on the frontline—on vaccine roll-out, but we keep all our measures under review, obviously to protect the vaccine but also to ensure that as the number of passengers coming into the country reduces, full checks are in place.