Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will remove Pakistan from the covid-19 red list of countries; and if he will make a statement.

Decisions on Red, Amber or Green List assignment and associated border measures are taken by Ministers, who take into account Joint Biosecurity Centre risk assessments of countries and territories, alongside wider public health factors.

Further engagement is planned between senior officials and Pakistan’s officials. This is in part to further understand the strategies employed by Pakistan, and to establish stable and long-term access to the outcome of Pakistan’s in-country genomic surveillance and sequencing.

These are intended to be temporary measures and the government keeps data for countries and territories under regular review.