Health Measures at UK Borders — House of Lords, 2021-02-04
Topic: Health
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank both noble Lords for their comments. I join the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in mourning the 109,000 people who have died. It is a terrible time, and our hearts go out to their families. Both noble Lords asked a series of interesting questions. I say from the outset that the strategy is based on two things. One is reducing transmissibility; the second is supressing any new variants. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked a very interesting question about the probability of a new more deadly virus, both from without and within the UK. That is a question that nobody can answer until it actually happens, because viruses mutate all the time: some in a weaker form, some in a stronger form. We know that new variants that we have seen recently are more transmissible, not necessarily more deadly, but supressing new variants because of the danger that the noble Lord talks about is absolutely the right thing. I do not agree that we have got the strategy wrong, or that the strategy has been all over the place. All along, the strategy has been guided by the science. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, makes accusations about the Prime Minister. We do not often have spats like this, but his right honourable friend Keir Starmer has been heard to say he mourned the passing of our use of the European Medicines Agency. Thank goodness we did not follow the Opposition’s strategy. The noble Lord also talked about how pleased he was about vaccinations. It is absolutely incredible: over 10 million people vaccinated. In terms of the vaccines’ interaction with the new variants, we think from results so far—although it is quite early to tell—that there is still some protection from some of the new variants we have seen All along, we have followed the FCDO advice. The regulations and powers that we have been making under the Coronavirus Act have come regularly. One thing to be borne in mind is that we have reduced travel by 90%, and of course self-isolation as a practice has been in place since last year With regard to review of the red countries, countries are of course under review all the time. In Scotland, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, was saying, everyone has to isolate. That is as may be, but we think the strategy we are employing is absolutely the right one It is important that we reduce the risk by reducing the number of people who enter the country who could be a new threat in terms of the variants and mutations, as I have said. We have already implemented numerous measures and protections to reduce that risk, but of course, last week new additional levels of protection at our disposal were announced. Some are forthcoming regarding hotels, as noble Lords have said. I understand that the DHSC will be leading on that and announcements will be made in due course I understand that the IS will be checking more than 5,000 people coming into the country and will contact all those who have arrived 10 days prior, as it has been doing and naturally has been asked to do, with regard to self-isolation. There will be an increase of about 1,000 targeted follow-up visits a day from that enhanced police presence at ports, borders and airports On enforcement, I understand that, as there have been, there will be fines for not complying with this, and of course the enforcement being done by police and Border Force will be stepped up. Capacity in hotels is a piece of work that DHSC will be carrying out I understand the question from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about compulsory 10-day quarantine in Australia. That has been very effective there but of course, Australia has some features that are entirely different from ours and which make it easier for people to quarantine The noble Lord also asked about countries with no genomic sequencing, which I thought was an interesting point. We are lending our expertise to countries to help them with their genomic sequencing because, of course, this is a problem not just for the UK but for the entire world. Genomic sequencing capabilities that help us will help the rest of the world.