Covid lockdown: Stop Wales visits from English virus hotspots, says Mark Drakeford

England should have similar lockdown travel restrictions to Wales, Mark Drakeford says

Wales' first minister has called for Boris Johnson to ban people in locked-down parts of England from travelling to Wales on holiday.

People in parts of Wales subject to local lockdowns cannot leave their area without a "reasonable excuse".

Holidays do not qualify but an equivalent rule does not apply in England.

People in locked-down areas such as Leicester and Bolton can go on holiday elsewhere with people they live with.

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Asked by Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price why people are able to travel from English hotspots to parts of Wales with low virus transmission, Mark Drakeford said he wrote to the prime minister on Monday urging him to put in place similar stay-local rules for English lockdown areas.

"As we act to prevent people who live in hotspots in Wales from travelling to England, and taking the risk of the virus with them, so the prime minister in his capacity as the prime minister of England in this case ought to do the same to prevent people from English hotspots from travelling elsewhere in England, to Wales, or other parts of the United Kingdom, because of the risk that that undoubtedly poses," Mr Drakeford said.

The first minister stressed that he did not think it would be right to institute "border controls".

Ceredigion council vice-chair Paul Hinge said he was "being contacted on a daily basis by park owners worried that people traveling from 'hot spot lockdown areas' in the Midlands and the north west of England to Ceredigion could be bringing this pernicious virus with them".

"They may well not be showing symptoms of the virus but they could still be carriers," he said.

"Travel outside those areas of lockdown must be restricted to high priority movement, which does not include going away on a holiday."

People in local lockdown areas in England can holiday in Wales and elsewhere in the UK under current rules

In his letter to Mr Johnson, the first minister said he "welcomed" the prime minister's indication, in a Cobra meeting they both attended last week, that further such discussions would take place.

He asked the prime minister "that a further meeting is convened urgently to discuss this and other imminent challenges".

Speaking later, Mr Price said Mr Drakeford had "dithered before raising this as an issue with the prime minister and there has been no public information campaign by the Welsh Government targeted at those living in areas of local restrictions over the border".

"This delay is putting communities at risk," he said.

Downing Street has been asked to comment.