UK MPs make fresh request to remove Pakistan from red list

Shadow minister Yasmin Qureshi and other MPs have made a renewed request to the UK government to reconsider Pakistan’s travel status and remove it from the red list.

In a letter to health secretary Sajid Javid, 13 MPs led by Qureshi said the red list status of Pakistan has been causing “grievous suffering” to its diaspora who are “unable to see their family members, particularly parents who are seriously ill”.

They reminded the government that the Covid positivity rate, daily average caseloads and mortality rate have all come down in Pakistan and that Germany, Spain and Italy have not placed the south Asian nation on their travel red lists.

The government should do away with the current stringent travel requirements and instead allow in people with negative PCR tests and World Health Organisation-approved vaccines, they said.

“The arriving passengers could then quarantine at home… rather than pay a punitive amount of money to isolate in substandard hotels”.

Genome sequencing in Pakistan confirmed that the Delta variant accounts for 90 per cent of the coronavirus cases in Pakistan and “there is no other variant of concern” in that country, they said in the latter, which is also signed by Rehman Chishti MP.

Quereshi, the shadow minister for international development, tweeted on Wednesday (25), “I hope at the earliest convenience Pakistan is moved from red to amber as common sense would dictate”.

The letter, backed by MPs Debbie Abrahams, Tahir Ali, Apsana Begum and Liam Byrne among others came amid the intense lobbying by Pakistan to ease it from travel restrictions which, Islamabad said, affected the travel plans of thousands of people.

During the last review of the travel status of various countries, the UK shifted India to the amber list while retaining Pakistan in the red category.

People travelling from red list countries are required to undergo a 10-day hotel quarantine that costs £2,285 per person.

The UK government is expected to update its travel data on Thursday (26).