Politically speaking with Yvette Cooper MP: ‘Stronger action vital to deal with new variants’

“A proud Yorkshireman, his determination gave us hope, and the £33m he raised will provide great support for NHS charities. It has been moving to see all the flowers left by Rachel List’s great painting of him in Pontefract. His legacy will live on through his generosity, his steely British spirit, and his wonderful family.

More than 100,000 people have now tragically lost their lives to Covid-19 in the UK including many hundreds in our area. So many have lost friends or relatives to Covid and my thoughts are with everyone who is grieving. A year ago when the first cases were arriving in the UK we never imagined it would come to this. How horrified we would have been had we known.

But that’s also why we need stronger action now to make sure that the vaccine programme we are all relying on to get us out of this isn’t undermined by new variants from South Africa or Brazil.

Our brilliant vaccination centres, at Castleford Civic Centre, Kings Medical Centre in Normanton, and now at Pontefract Squash Club, have seen thousands of people through their doors. Jab by jab our NHS is making things a bit safer for everyone.

But scientists say the vaccines may be less effective against the South Africa variant. That’s why we need stronger action to prevent it spreading here.

I’ve been calling since last spring for stronger public health measures at the border. Countries like South Korea, New Zealand and Australia put in place proper testing and quarantine at the border from the very beginning, while the UK had nothing for months.

Yet evidence shows that thousands more Covid cases were brought into the UK last spring by people coming back from holidays in France or Spain and not being tested or having to self-isolate at home.

Even now, the current border policy isn’t working. I asked Boris Johnson in parliament a few weeks ago why people were still allowed to travel back from South Africa on indirect flights and go straight on to the train or tube without being tested.

He didn’t know. Four weeks later - seven weeks after the South Africa variant was first identified, we still don’t have testing for passengers on arrival, don’t have any quarantine hotels in place and most people arriving home still won’t be covered by them.

That’s why I’m still calling for stronger measures to prevent new variants spreading.

The countries that have controlled Covid best are the ones that took strong early action at the borders - Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan and more. As a result, their schools, shops, businesses, bars, cafes and sporting events are now all open, while we struggle in our third difficult lockdown.

The prime minister says we have one of the “toughest border regimes in the world.” It isn’t true and saying it doesn’t make it so.

Our vaccine programme is doing well and we all want it to work - and that’s why we need urgent action to strengthen Covid controls on our borders now.

I will keep up pressure on the government to learn from past mistakes that have been made so our country can deal with new variants now.