Home Affairs Committee Oral Evidence: Home Office Preparedness for Covid- 19 (Coronavirus), HC 232
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Home Affairs Committee Oral evidence: Home Office Preparedness for Covid- 19 (Coronavirus), HC 232 Wednesday 29 April 2020 Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 29 April 2020. Watch the meeting Members present: Yvette Cooper (Chair); Janet Daby; Dehenna Davison; Stephen Doughty; Ruth Edwards; Laura Farris; Simon Fell; Adam Holloway; Tim Loughton; Holly Lynch; Stuart C. McDonald. Questions 315 to 380 Witnesses I: Rt Hon. Priti Patel, Home Secretary, Home Office; Matthew Rycroft CBE, Permanent Secretary, Home Office; and Shona Dunn, Second Permanent Secretary, Home Office. Examination of witnesses Witnesses: Priti Patel, Matthew Rycroft and Shona Dunn. Q315 Chair: Welcome to this Home Affairs Committee evidence on coronavirus and the Home Office’s response to the coronavirus crisis. We welcome the Home Secretary and also the permanent secretary, Matthew Rycroft, and the second permanent secretary, Shona Dunn. Mr Rycroft, we particularly welcome you, as this is your first appearance before our Committee, and we also welcome you to your post. Before we start, we convey our congratulations to Carrie Symonds and the Prime Minister on the birth of their baby, which is very good news for them. The issues we want to cover today will be around borders, followed by immigration, followed by law enforcement and domestic abuse, and then some wider issues about where we go from here. I begin by just thanking you in the Home Office and all of the agencies that you work with, including Border Force, and also police officers across the country, for the immense amount of work that I know everybody is doing as a result of the coronavirus crisis. Can we start with the first factual questions? Could you tell us how many people are entering the country each day at the moment, Home Secretary? Priti Patel: Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you for this opportunity. I echo your congratulations to our Prime Minister and to Carrie on the birth of their baby today. I also very much recognise and thank everybody across law enforcement and across the civil service who have been working on covid coronavirus and all the associated issues, at what has been an incredibly challenging time. I have been on an operational call this morning with law enforcement and I will come on to that shortly. There are many things that law enforcement are doing, which, quite frankly, should make us all very proud. You have asked about the numbers of people coming into the country. The latest numbers I have are for the period of 16 to 22 April. Air passenger numbers are significantly down year on year; this is the data that I have. They are down by 99% compared with the same time last year. Maritime passengers are down by 88.7% compared with the same week in 2019, and international rail passengers are down by 94%, and again that is compared with the numbers from last year. Obviously, it is fair to say that over the last six weeks, just to put some of this into context, clearly the world has locked itself down and passenger numbers have been low. In terms of air passengers, 63.6% of arriving air passengers have been returning British nationals, and of course we must remember that we have had repatriation flights taking place, quite frankly, on a continuous basis, which has obviously led to numbers of people coming into the United Kingdom. Q316 Chair: Thank you. What is the actual number? On 16 April, the Health Secretary said it was 15,000. What is the actual number now? Priti Patel: The actual number of people coming in, as of Friday 24 April, was 9,906. Q317 Chair: Great. And what is your estimate of the proportion of people arriving at ports and airports with coronavirus? Priti Patel: We don’t have that data, because obviously our overall approach to international travel and checks at the borders has consistently been informed by the scientific and medical advice provided by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies—SAGE—and Public Health England, so there is no testing at the border. That is a cross-Government decision based upon SAGE advice and medical advice and also with the Department for Transport. I should also add this around people coming into the country. Let’s not forget that we do have people coming in driving goods. Obviously, security of food supply, medical supply etc. has been pivotal over the last six weeks and so that is also something that has been factored in, in terms of the number of people coming into the United Kingdom and why they are coming into the UK. Q318 Chair: Sure, but you must have an estimate. Surely you must have some estimate, SAGE must have done an estimate or somebody must have done an estimate, because you would need that on which to base your policies on whether to ask people to self-isolate or to have quarantine rules at the border. You must have an estimate. Priti Patel: The fact of the matter is that SAGE work on the numbers, and obviously for them it’s the R value—the reproduction value—based on the lack of flow, basically, coming in through the border, because as we have already said, passenger numbers are down at the border. Notwithstanding that, we have to remember that they have basically said, based on their advice—their advice has been not to bring in any changes in terms of testing or things of that nature, and we are following that advice. Any restrictions that they looked at—we commissioned this several weeks ago. Scientific advice has been very clear that any restrictions or measures would have a negligible impact on the progression of the virus at the border, given the significant reduction of numbers of people arriving. That is basically what SAGE have been basing their advice to Government on. Q319 Chair: But in order to come to that conclusion, they must have an assessment of the proportion of people who have coronavirus. You have flights from New York, where the New York Governor—people have talked about prevalence levels now being around 20%. We have had, through this period, flights of people coming home from Spain or from Italy. You took a decision not to have self-isolation rules at the border in a way that other countries have, but I presume that was based on some sort of figures or estimates about what proportion of people might have the virus. Priti Patel: My understanding is, from the SAGE advice that has been given to Government, that the estimate was 0.5%, and that has effectively led to the decision, based on the advice that we have had from both SAGE and Public Health England, that no changes would be required. Q320 Chair: Is that 0.5% of passengers arriving at airports? Priti Patel: That is 0.5% of the total number of people. Q321 Chair: Travelling—the total number of people who— Priti Patel: Well, that’s my understanding—that is my understanding. Q322 Chair: Okay. This just seems the sort of thing that it would be very important to have some accuracy on. Priti Patel: We will provide that. I am very happy to get that figure for the Committee. My understanding is—in fact, I have just been told that that is based on the exact number of symptomatic. Well, the exact number of symptomatic people is in the low tens, but I will get clarity for the Committee in terms of the actual figure that is used by SAGE, because I think that is what you are asking in your question, and that has therefore been factored into their calculations, with the R factor, that then led to the decision and the advice that they gave to Government not to bring in restrictions or measures. Q323 Chair: Why haven’t you published that advice? Priti Patel: That is not for me to publish, and my understanding is that SAGE will be publishing. They are publishing data and scientific advice, so that will come in due course. I am absolutely clear I have been told that SAGE are publishing data. Specifically to this, I am sure that advice will be published, but as I have said, I will absolutely get that figure that has been used as part of the equation for the R calculation that then led to, obviously, their decisions, their advice, around public health recommendations. We will get that for you. Q324 Chair: The reason why this is significant is obviously that Germany, New Zealand, South Korea, Italy, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Greece—all these countries ask people who are arriving back in the country, people who are travelling home from all over the world, to self-isolate, maybe for 14 days, and we don’t. You have said it’s the science, but is our science different from all of theirs? Priti Patel: These are questions absolutely for SAGE, but there are some fundamental points that we must all recognise and note here. Every other country has been at a different stage in terms of the virus and the peaks in their own country. SAGE and our scientific advisers can only base their recommendations to Ministers and Government on the data that they have at a particular time. We are going back, obviously, to the end of March period, when that advice was commissioned and provided to Ministers. It might be worth noting that, even if you look at a country such as Italy, which took very restrictive measures, it did not necessarily stop the spread of the virus.