UK Government accused of ‘making same mistakes all over again’ on border measures

The UK Government has been accused of “making the same mistakes all over again” by not introducing tougher border measures.

The statement from the SNP comes after it was revealed the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) warned “geographically targeted travel bans” were not enough to stop new coronavirus strains from arriving in the country almost a week before Boris Johnson announced new measures.

Sage members explained this was "due to the lag between the emergence and identification of variants of concern" as well as "the potential for indirect travel" to the UK.

The Prime Minister announced the plans for mandatory hotel quarantine for those arriving from "red list" countries to MPs last Wednesday, but so far there is no indication of when the policy will come in.

Countries on the "red list" include all those in South America, as well as large parts of southern Africa and Portugal.

Mr Johnson has now been accused of putting lives at risk and having “dithered and delayed”.

SNP shadow home secretary Stuart McDonald said: "Boris Johnson is repeating the same mistakes all over again by refusing to introduce the strict border controls and health measures needed to tackle the spread of covid-19 and its new variants.

"The SNP has been calling for tougher restrictions since last spring, but we have been repeatedly ignored by the Prime Minister, who has allowed millions of arrivals into the UK in the middle of a pandemic without the necessary travel bans, health measures and quarantining in place.

"No one wants to restrict people's travel, but unfortunately the cost of not doing so is far too high.

“It is a shocking dereliction of duty that Boris Johnson has allowed this to go on for so long.

“These half-baked measures are simply not good enough – they are putting lives at risk.”

Labour's shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds also demanded more border measures, labelling the Sage advice as “incredibly serious”.

He said: "Ministers have knowingly left the UK border open and potentially exposed people to new strains of the virus, in direct contradiction of their own government scientists' advice.

"This puts the gains of the vaccine at risk, with disastrous consequences for people's lives.

"The home secretary needs to come to Parliament urgently and reverse this reckless policy of leaving our borders unlocked and open to further risk."

On Monday morning universities minister Michelle Donelan insisted the UK Government had "always based our decisions on the best medical and scientific advice that we can get in this country".

She said: "The Sage advice actually said it would be probably ineffective, in fact, to close the borders, which was the same advice that we got at the time from the World Health Organisation.

"But, throughout this pandemic, we've had a number of measures to protect our borders, including quarantining, travel corridors – it's evolved as the data and the situation has evolved.

"So we have been robust in our approach throughout the pandemic and we've evolved it and we will continue to evolve it, including the fact we're going to have 30 countries now where people will have to go into a designated hotel."

The UK Government has been approached for comment.

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