8,000 tourists a day enter Britain ... while we can’t holiday abroad

THOUSANDS of tourists a day are entering this country while Britons are barred from going on holiday.

Of the 20,000 people arriving on average every day, about 40 per cent – or 8,000 – are tourists, according to Border Force figures.

A Border Force source said: ‘We are virtually powerless to stop people coming in from abroad to visit family even though resident Britons are locked down. Thousands are coming in every day for non-essential travel. It doesn’t make any sense.’

A Peruvian tourist granted a visa said in documentation that the reason for their trip was to ‘visit Big Ben’.

All arrivals must have proof of a negative Covid test and complete a ‘passenger locator form’. They are required to quarantine for ten days, but only 1 per cent must quarantine in a hotel. Last week the Government brought in £5,000 fines for Britons who arrive at an airport with the intention of going abroad on holiday.

Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said failing to stop tourists from entering the UK is ‘putting the sacrifices of the British people and progress of the vaccine at risk from Covid variants.’

Asked about the 40 per cent figure, Professor Neil Ferguson, architect of Britain’s first lockdown, told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘It would be alarming if that was the case.’ Health minister Edward Argar said: ‘That isn’t a figure I recognise or have seen.’

Yvette Cooper, chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, said: ‘It’s incomprehensible that almost a year into this crisis, basic Covid border measures are still not working.

‘The Home Office can’t explain what’s happening, doesn’t have proper figures and doesn’t even seem to know if it’s true or not.

‘As the vaccine rolls out and we hope to be able to get back to normal step by step, the Government needs to make sure they don’t derail the whole thing by making the same mistakes at the border all over again.’