An inquiry by the Commons Home Affairs Committee has concluded that the lack of effective border controls “accelerated” the scale and pace of the coronavirus in the UK – leading to many more people contracting Covid-19.

Responding to the report, Labour Group Leader, Cllr Nick Peel said “ There have clearly been a catalogue of errors from the Government in how it has dealt with this deadly pandemic, whether that be the total unpreparedness of the country in terms of PPE supplies, or the shameful way in which care homes were thrown to the dogs.

However one of the most baffling decisions they made was to continue to allow thousands of Covid positive people to continue to enter the UK, with no quarantine requirement. This is surely a major factor to explain why the UK has the highest death rate per capita of any comparable country.

The Government need to answer some serious questions on why they made this catastrophic decision.”