Top Tory hits out at Wales travel ban

WEST MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has proclaimed proposals to create restrictions on the border between England and Wales are ‘unconstitutional’.

Speaking in the Commons as the Leader of the House, the North East Somerset MP said the decision would ‘place the police in an invidious position’.

On Wednesday, the Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford announced that under devolved powers to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, travel into Wales from Tier 2 and Tier 3 Covid hotspots in England would be illegal, and people would be turned back.

Much of the south of Wales has already been on more stringent lockdown rules than England for a month or more, with police mounting checkpoints to advise people about travelling between local authority areas, for example between Newport and Cardiff.

The new rules the Welsh Government said they are implementing this week would effectively ban anyone from Manchester, Liverpool, much of the north of England and London – with the news yesterday that the capital looks set to go into the more serious Tier 2 setting – from crossing into Wales.

How it will be enforced remains to be seen, but police in Wales have said they will carry out whatever is asked of them by the Welsh Government.

But the move was criticised by Mr Rees-Mogg, whose North East Somerset constituency is as little as 20 miles from the Welsh border.

He was answering a question from Tory MP Alicia Kearns, who said: “Can my right honourable friend confirm that it would be illegal for the Welsh Labour Government to introduce an intensive border within the UK to restrict movement between England and Wales?”

Mr Rees Mogg replied: “What would you expect of a hard-left Labour Government? The approach to putting a border between England and Wales is unconstitutional and will place the police in an invidious position considering that they serve the whole of the United Kingdom.

“We are one single United Kingdom and we should not have... borders between different parts of the United Kingdom.”

First Minister Mark Drakeford took the decision after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson ignored his repeated requests to stop people from English lockdown areas travelling to Wales.

They will come into place from today.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Thursday, Mr Drakeford said:

“The police will act as they did earlier in the year when we had a stay local rule in Wales, the police will have extra patrols on the main roads coming into Wales.”