Countries could be added on 'red list' at hours' notice - Nick Thomas-Symonds responds

Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, responding to reports that countries on the 'red list' could be added with a few hours’ notice, said:

"The UK government are clearly content to continue lurching from one crisis to another when it comes to border policy.

"They need - urgently - to move to a comprehensive hotel quarantine system, to protect against mutant strains of the virus and provide certainty. Continuing with this 'red list' approach will achieve neither."

Ends

Notes to Editors:

• Govt sources confirm that countries will be added to the so called 'red list' ( ie that require you to go in to #hotelquarantine in England if you have been there in the past ten days) at a few hours notice if need be rather than, as now, having a weekly review https://twitter.com/iainjwatson/status/1360121485063581696