‘TEST FRENCH TRUCKERS’
PM URGED TO BEGIN CHECKS AS HE CONSIDERS PUTTING NEIGHBOURS ON RED LIST
THE Union flag is to be flown on UK government buildings every day rather than specific occasions, under new guidance. Letters have been sent to councils asking them to fly the flag which culture secretary Oliver Dowden said ‘unites us as a nation’.
TRUCKERS arriving across the Channel should be tested for Covid-19, Boris Johnson was told as he admitted travellers from France could be banned.
The prime minister said he would ‘have to look at’ adding our close neighbour to the quarantine red list over fears about the spread of the South African and Brazilian variants.
That would deny entry to passengers arriving from or via the country, except for British and Irish nationals and others with residency rights here, who would have to isolate in a hotel.
Labour’s Yvette Cooper, head of the home affairs select committee, asked why France was not already on the red
list. And she added: ‘Everyone understands hauliers clearly can’t be covered by quarantine and carry on doing their vital job. Why are you not testing them?’
Mr Johnson responded: ‘If it’s necessary to bring in testing then we will do so, but I think you should understand the balance of doing that, the disruption to trade, and the risk that we are trying to address.’
Addressing the leaders of the 32 Commons select committees, the PM also said pubs might be able to demand proof that customers had received a vaccine or tested negative.
He had seemed to dismiss the idea last month but said: ‘It may be up to individual publicans.’
He insisted the £37billion Test and Trace programme, condemned by MPs for failing to make a difference, was ‘an extraordinary achievement’.