UK to tighten border control and extend police powers in lockdown enforcement

Opposition MP questions government’s delay in limiting non-essential travel

The UK is set to tighten restrictions on international travel. Getty Images

The UK will bring in new border restrictions within days to contain the spread of coronavirus, Home Secretary Priti Patel said on Thursday.

The government has been under pressure to restrict non-essential travel to the UK, particularly from South Africa, where a mutant strain of highly transmissible coronavirus was detected.

Ms Patel said lockdown rules generally meant Britons should not be travelling abroad. "You will hear very shortly some of the changes the government is proposing at the border," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "Travel should only be taking place under very strict rules."

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove suggested on Tuesday that new international travel restrictions were on the way.

Among the plans under review are a requirement for a negative Covid-19 test before travellers are allowed to enter the country. Quarantine is currently compulsory for those arriving from many countries but testing is not.

Labour MP Yvette Cooper criticised the government for delaying the announcement on border restrictions. “Why is it taking so long?” she tweeted.

England’s third national lockdown came into force on Wednesday after parliamentary approval.

The Metropolitan Police in London said officers are instructed to issue fines “more quickly” to anyone committing serious breaches of the order to stay at home. Officers will now stop people in the street to ask where they are going.

“The critical situation our NHS colleagues are facing and the way the new virus variant moves through communities means we can no longer spend our time explaining or encouraging people to follow rules where they are wilfully and dangerously breaching,” Met Police deputy assistant commissioner Matt Twist said.

Ms Patel said enforcement of the current lockdown would be similar to strict police activity in the spring shutdown. “We are in the thick of this shocking virus,” she said.

The UK reported a record 62,322 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday and 1,041 deaths.

The daily death toll, the highest since April, was the 10th time it has exceeded 1,000 since the pandemic began.