Priti Patel has been criticised by the home affairs committee chair after claiming the UK’s border controls had been effective against the Delta variant.
Opening the questions,Labour’s Yvette Cooper asked why border measures have failed to keep out new variants such as the one originating India, which has since become known as the ‘Johnson variant’.
The home secretary told Cooper that she does not accept that the border controls failed, despite the UK now having the highest daily rate of Covid-19 cases in the world.
The UK recorded 39,950 more coronavirus cases yesterday, officials announced, with the Delta variant thought to be the most common type of the virus spreading throughout the British Isles.
The latest single-day tally is the highest recorded on a Monday since January 11, when 46,169 infections were reported.
Cooper told Patel that she does not think there is anyone in the country who think the government’s border policy worked to prevent the Delta variant spread in the UK.
She says it is “quite troubling” that Patel is saying the policy worked.
Rejecting Patel’s answer she said the border systems “clearly did fail” because the Delta variant has now spread all over the country.
Patel was also asked why if on 16 April Parel was worried about new cases in India. Why did it take a full week from then to put India on the red list?
Again Patel rejected the accusations and said she does not accept that the government delayed putting India on the red list.
She said: “when it was put on the red list, the Delta variant had not yet been identified in the UK as a variant of concern.”
Watch
Yvette Cooper – "I don't think there's anybody in the country who thinks that your border policy worked to prevent the Delta variant spreading right across the country… so it's troubling that you're(Priti Patel) effectively saying that the policy did work…" pic.twitter.com/jehWdNSRrP
— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) July 21, 2021
Related: Jeff Bezos thanks Amazon workers for paying for his space flight
Since you are here
Since you are here, we wanted to ask for your help.
Journalism in Britain is under threat. The government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and our media is run by a handful of billionaires, most of whom reside overseas and all of them have strong political allegiances and financial motivations.
Our mission is to hold the powerful to account. It is vital that free media is allowed to exist to expose hypocrisy, corruption, wrongdoing and abuse of power. But we can't do it without you.
If you can afford to contribute a small donation to the site it will help us to continue our work in the best interests of the public. We only ask you to donate what you can afford, with an option to cancel your subscription at any point.
To donate or subscribe to The London Economic, click here.
The TLE shop is also now open, with all profits going to supporting our work.
The shop can be found here.
You can also SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER .
