Covid-Secure Borders — House of Commons, 2021-06-15
Topic: Immigration
Robert Alexander Courts (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Member is quite right: of course it is essential to make the difficult decisions, to make them quickly and to get them right. I will explain in just a moment how we have done that Before I do so, on quarantine measures, the Opposition have called for "a clear, simply understood and proper hotel quarantine scheme in operation at the UK border to minimise the risk of introduction of new variants into the UK" As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) among many others, that is exactly what we have in place. Currently, every passenger is checked by Border Force and the brilliant Test and Trace scheme, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) quite rightly paid tribute and which has been running for so many months now As of 15 February 2021, British and Irish nationals and those with residency rights in the UK who have passed through a red list country within 10 days of their arrival in the UK are required to quarantine for 10 days in a managed quarantine hotel. Passengers arriving from red list countries may enter the UK only at certain designated ports. Individuals who fail to book travel to the appropriate port will be denied boarding by the carrier On arrival in the UK, passengers required to enter managed quarantine will be met at passport control and guided through baggage reclaim and customs to the dedicated hotel transport, where they will be transported to their hotel. Direct flights from red list countries are only able to arrive into dedicated facilities at airports, including entire terminals, so long as passengers are segregated from other arrivals. At present, Birmingham and Heathrow airports are both operating dedicated facilities, and that may expand to include other airports in the future New variants present a worldwide challenge, as we have heard today. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) told us how many countries have experienced the challenges of variants, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). The Government continue to monitor new variants closely, and it is worth remembering that approximately 40% of the world’s sequencing capability is found in the UK. We have also put in place enhanced contact tracing for individuals identified as having a new variant, in order to minimise onward transmission. The new measures build on the tough action that the Government have already taken to increase security against the new variants from abroad We will keep all our measures under constant review to ensure that they remain necessary and proportionate. There are checkpoints in June, July and October. The measures are not set in stone; what we have designed is intended to be adaptable to the evolving epidemiological picture, and the UK Government are prepared to take action at any time to protect public health I notice that today the Opposition are trying to produce some sort of dodgy dossier, with a timeline of dates relating to our borders policy. The first date in that document is 6 January 2021, when they claim they urged us to get a grip on our borders. I am not entirely sure what they think that achieves, other than to illustrate how hopelessly behind the curve they are and how desperately they hope that hindsight will find them a way through. By the time Labour had woken up to this issue in January, the Government had already introduced self-isolation for all arrivals into the UK—a full six months earlier, on 8 June 2020 Let me give the House some more dates that the Opposition might find interesting. On 8 June 2020, the Leader of the Opposition criticised our quarantine measures. On 29 June 2020, the shadow Transport Secretary called for quarantine to be replaced. On 3 July 2020, the Labour party called for "the government’s quarantine measures to be lessened."