According to reports, UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps explained why UK borders would not close. This is because the UK needs things such as medicine and food to enter the country.
Mr Shapps said “we wouldn’t be safe” if borders were to close fully and that the UK is “pretty shaky.”
Political Correspondent at Sky Kate McCann tweeted: “Transport Secretary Grant Shapps says the idea of banning all travel in and out of the UK is ‘pretty shaky’ and ‘we wouldn’t be safe’ because we need to move medicine, food, people and raw materials in and out.”
This comes despite the fact many have called for a complete end to international travel during the pandemic.
Similar methods have seen success in New Zealand and Australia.
However, people are divided on whether preventing foreign travel is the right move.
Travelling abroad currently is illegal besides for anyone with a legally permitted reason to do so.
The UK Government stated: “It is illegal to travel abroad for holidays and other leisure purposes.”
What exactly are the legal reasons to travel abroad?
There are a number of reasons to travel falling under this legal definition.
That is for:
- Work that cannot be done from home
- Medical appointments
- Educational reasons
Despite Grant Shapps’s words this morning, Boris Johnson is facing mounting pressure to close down the borders entirely.
Today health expert Oksana Pyzik said that “better border control” would help protect the vaccination programme.
She told LBC’s Iain Dale: “From a public health perspective it is going to be more effective if there is a coordinated approach across all four nations and for the borders controls to follow a more strict strategy.
“This is particularly important because the UK has been about three steps behind this virus at every stage of the pandemic.
“Now things are turning around with the success, the very rapid rate of vaccinations across the UK
“We cannot put that at risk by allowing further community transmission especially of these variants.”
This comes after Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, told local BBC news Britons can look forward to a “happy and free Great British summer.”
Matt Hancock said: “In six months we’ll be in the middle, I hope, of a happy and free Great British summer.”
“I have a high degree of confidence that by then the vast majority of adults will have been vaccinated,” he added.
Speaking on BBC Politics East he said: “The more people who take up the vaccine, the more we will be protected as a society,” the Health Secretary said.
He added: “That high take up is incredibly important.”
