Covid-Secure Borders

Mark Fletcher Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate, and a particular pleasure to follow my friend the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), although I do not think that she will be surprised to know that I did not agree with all her points. However, I was particularly struck by her tribute to the roll-out of the Welsh vaccine. I share her praise for all those who have been involved in the vaccine roll-out, which I think is a success of this brilliant British Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson) started her eloquent speech with a wonderful tribute to various professions that have helped to keep our borders safe and our travel industry going in the form in which it has needed to operate in covid times. I fully endorse the list that she gave in her wonderful speech.

The borders policy that we have implemented as a Government is proportionate to the risks that we face at the moment. It is a sensible policy. As time has gone on, we have implemented a clear quarantining policy. We have a traffic light system that, if we took out amber, may not be a traffic light system. We have a passenger location form system in place, and I was very pleased to see recently that we have increased the number of checks on those who come into the country to ensure that they are where they say they are. Of course, we also have the testing regime. Those of us in the House who were involved in that in April last year will remember when the number of tests that we were doing was minute. The way in which we have grown the testing system in this country is phenomenal. It has been a huge success for all the scientists, Government Departments and businesses involved.

I am a little reluctant to stray into this “toughest border policy ever” argument and to play political ping-pong on who can sound the toughest on borders. I appreciate, after all that happened from 2016 onwards, that the Labour party would like to gain some credibility on that front.

We are in danger of not acknowledging that the world in which we operate is based on risk. The reason why we call what was previously known as the Indian variant the delta variant is that it is the fourth variant to become particularly significant. I have concerns about the proposals outlined by the Opposition, because we will face other variants in future. We will face situations that shift, and over time we will have to learn to live with covid, in whatever form it takes, as we have learned many times in the past to live with different diseases. If we go down the route of making our border policy the toughest ever, that will have a huge impact on various industries, whether aviation, tourism or the travel sector.

Many of my constituents work in those sectors. I think of the pilots who have come to me and said, “Please let us fly out.” I think of all my constituents who want to go on holiday, but cannot do so at the moment—and quite rightly. I worry that, over the next few months and even years, if we play the game of “We can sound toughest on borders”, we will not act in proportion to the risks that we face. That is particularly significant in relation to yesterday’s announcement, because we are well ahead in vaccine policy and roll-out in this country. We will be in a position where we can live with covid, and we will have to learn to do so. Everyone will have to make decisions about the risks that we face.

I am also concerned about the “toughest border policy ever” approach, because this is complicated, and we need to acknowledge that the side-effects of just sounding tough make things difficult for other industries. Are we really suggesting that we should reach a point where we cannot import vaccines or food supplies? If we go down the route of playing the game of who can sound toughest, is that the kind of side effect that we want to have? I have had constituents who have been stuck abroad in the past year or so, all of them in incredibly legitimate circumstances. Many of them were in incredibly vulnerable states, and we were able to return them. Travel is not necessarily, as many of my colleagues have said, about going abroad for a jolly. There are reasons why people need to travel, and we need to be really careful about nuance and the unintended effects of the proposal that we are debating.

I shall conclude with the proposal at the end of the Opposition motion on vaccine passports for international travel, which has some merit. I am concerned that it will be discriminatory for young people. We are looking at a policy that favours certain demographics over others, and will have a particular effect on certain countries. I suggest that, again, further consideration and thought need to be put into what the Opposition are asking for today, which is why I do not support the motion.