Labour claims the government has “knowingly left the UK border open and potentially exposed people to new strains of the virus”.
Scientists warned only mandatory hotel quarantine for all travellers to the UK would come close to fully preventing the import of new COVID variants, it has emerged.
The government last week announced plans for UK nationals and residents returning from “red list” countries to be placed in quarantine in government provided accommodation – such as hotels – for 10 days.
However, this action will stop short of a full closure of the UK’s border, or mandatory hotel quarantine for all arrivals, as some had called for.
It has now been revealed that on 21 January, almost a week before the government announced their plans, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) warned that “reactive, geographically targeted” travel bans “cannot be relied upon to stop importation of new variants”.
They said 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 via third countries.
However, the scientists did say the emergence of new COVID variants around the world meant there was a “rationale for attempting to reduce importation of even small numbers of infectious cases”.
The emergence of the SAGE advice comes amid fears the South Africa coronavirus variant, believed to be more contagious than the original variant, is spreading across England.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the plans for mandatory hotel quarantine for those arriving from “red list” countries to MPs last Wednesday.
But ministers have yet to reveal when the plans will be put into practice.
Asked about reports the hotel quarantine plan might not be in place until the week of 15 February, Number 10 would only tell The premiers News the measures would be implemented “as soon as possible”.
The UK’s travel “red list” currently consists of 33 countries and includes all those in South America, as well as large parts of southern Africa and Portugal.
Last week, the United Arab Emirates was added to the list and a ban on direct flights was imposed.
Universities minister Michelle Donelan told The premiers News that the government had “always based our decisions on the best medical and scientific advice that we can get in this country” during the COVID crisis.
“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,” she said.
“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.
“We’ve now got countries that are banned in general. We’ve got a very strict message to our own people not to travel unless there is a very, very clear exemption there.
“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.”
Number 10 sources stressed the prime minister was not advised by SAGE to close all travel across the border.
They said that SAGE had advised travel bans “should not be relied upon to stop the importation of new variants” and are “not the most effective tool to reduce the infection rates in all circumstances”.
According to Downing Street, SAGE also said that the risk of infection spreading is reduced with “an effective policy regime including testing and or quarantine/isolation for travellers in place”.
But Labour’s shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, reiterated his call for border measures to go further following the emergence of the SAGE advice.
“These revelations are 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 (Priti Patel) needs to come to parliament urgently and reverse this reckless policy of leaving our Borders unlocked and open to further risk.”
The prime minister was recently accused of having overruled Ms Patel after she claimed she argued for the shutting of the UK’s borders at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year.
Those calling for tougher border measures have frequently pointed to the examples of Australia and New Zealand, who have imposed mandatory hotel quarantine since the early weeks of the pandemic and have largely eliminated transmission of the virus within their borders.
There have been 105 cases of the South African variant detected in the UK – and 11 of them identified over the last five or six days do not appear to have links to international travel.
This has led to concerns there may be pockets of spread in local communities with the health secretary announcing a testing blitz of 80,000 people aimed at finding “every single case”.
The eight postcode areas at the epicentre of the intensified testing programme are: Hanwell, west London; Tottenham, north London; Mitcham, south London; Walsall in the West Midlands; Broxbourne, Hertfordshire; Maidstone, Kent; Woking, Surrey; and Southport, Merseyside.
