During a Liaison Committee, Boris Johnson said putting France on the travel “red list” was “something that we will have to look at”.
Any tougher measures would be due to concerns about the spread of the South African and Brazilian strains of coronavirus circulating in France.
“We will have to look at tougher measures, just because of this ambiguity about the effectiveness of the vaccines,” he said.
Home Affairs Committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper said “everyone understands that hauliers clearly can’t be covered by quarantine and carry on doing their vital job” but she asked “why are you not testing them?”
Boris Johnson said “we have to look at the situation at the Channel” and “we can’t rule out tougher measures and we will put them in if necessary” to tackle the risk of importing coronavirus variants from France.
“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,” he told the Liaison Committee.
In response to questioning from Labour’s Yvette Cooper he said: “We will take a decision, no matter how tough, to interrupt that trade, to interrupt those flows, if we think that it is necessary to protect public health and to stop new variants coming in.
“It may be that we have to do that very soon.”
Boris Johnson said “we have to look at the situation at the Channel” and “we can’t rule out tougher measures and we will put them in if necessary” to tackle the risk of importing coronavirus variants from France.
“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,” he told the Liaison Committee.
In response to questioning from Labour’s Yvette Cooper he said: “We will take a decision, no matter how tough, to interrupt that trade, to interrupt those flows, if we think that it is necessary to protect public health and to stop new variants coming in.
“It may be that we have to do that very soon.”
