Nick Thomas-Symonds – 2021 Comments on Securing the Borders

The comments made by Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Shadow Home Secretary, on 29 January 2021.

Yet again on border security Government action is too little, too late. Limiting restrictions to just a handful of countries puts at risk the gains being made by the vaccine, by exposing us to potentially resistant Covid-19 strains, undermining the huge sacrifices of the British people.

Labour is calling on the Government to introduce a comprehensive hotel quarantine system for all travellers, in order to shut down the gaping holes in the Government’s plans. The plans have no clear basis in science and fail to recognise that we do not know where the next strains of the virus will emerge from, until it is too late.

The fact that Britain has already imported strains of the virus identified in South Africa and Brazil, shows that the quarantine systems in place are woefully inadequate, little wonder when just three in 100 people who are supposed to be quarantining are successfully contacted.