The Federal Minister for Planning Asad Umar and British MP of Pak descent, Naz Shah have sharply criticized the British government for slapping bizzare travel restrictions on the country under the garb of surge in the Covid-19 cases. Under the “red list, only UK, Irish nationals and those with residency rights in the UK can travel to Britain if they were in Pakistan ten days before their arrival to UK and they would be required to pay for a mandatory ten-day quarantined hotel stay.
Naz Shah, Labour MP for Bradford West, wrote to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, arguing that “the Government isn’t serious about protecting the British public”, after a number of countries were added to England’s red list yesterday. From 4am on 9 April, people who have travelled from or through the Philippines, Pakistan, Kenya or Bangladesh in the previous 10 days will be refused entry to the country.
With Pakistan “about to enter the red list” at the time of her letter to Mr Raab, Ms Shah asked why this decision was being made, despite countries such as “France, Germany and India” having “substantially higher numbers of infections” compared to Pakistan, and not being placed on the red list.
In her letter, Ms Shah added: “I have a large Pakistani diaspora within my constituency, which is why I am writing to simply ask, what scientific data is any decision being led by?
Reported by The News & the telegraph
