Call for Foreign Office shake up over Covid repatriation failings
MPs have called for a shake up at the Foreign Office over its "shocking handling" of Britain's coronavirus repatriation efforts.
John Spellar said stranded Brits had experienced "an appalling mixture of complacency, incompetence and indifference" from Ministers over efforts to bring them home in the early stages of the pandemic.
Thousands of people from the West Midlands were among those stuck abroad unable to get flights home when lockdown measures were brought in at the start of March.
At the time the Express & Star reported on families trapped in the Punjab region of India for weeks on end, with elderly people unable to access medical supplies or leave their accommodation.
A new report by the Foreign Affairs Committee said the repatriation operation was too slow, and that Foreign Office advice had been misleading or confusing. It also criticised the Government for being too reliant on commercial airlines.
Mr Spellar, the Labour MP for Warley, said: "I am pleased the Foreign Affairs Committee have exposed the shocking handling of repatriation.
"My constituents experienced an appalling mixture of complacency, incompetence and indifference. It needed a huge effort to get the Foreign Office to recognise the scale of the problem.
"They need to be shaken up from top to bottom."
Pat McFadden, the Shadow City Minister and Wolverhampton South East MP, said: "The report’s conclusions are right. The Foreign Office was too slow to respond to the plight of British residents stranded abroad in the early weeks of lockdown.
"This disruption caused immense distress both for those stuck overseas and their families here in the UK.
"I had many constituents stranded in India with no commercial flights available, some of whom were elderly and infirm and low on medical supplies.
"The Government should have chartered flights much earlier and got people home much sooner."
It is believed that around 1.3 million British nationals were abroad when the majority of countries started to impose lockdown measures earlier this year.
In its report, the cross-party committee said despite some "notable successes," the Foreign Office was "outpaced by events" as the pandemic unfolded.
Too many UK citizens were not provided with support they should "reasonably expect to receive," it said, whilst "little was done" to provide financial support for those facing hardship.
Although emergency loans were offered, awareness of them was low and people were initially advised to borrow money from friends and family, the report continued.
The report added that some people were forced to endure "long periods of time" on the phone, whilst others saw their calls go unanswered.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "Against the background of local lockdowns and international flight bans, the team worked tirelessly to keep commercial routes open as long as possible, while bringing stranded Brits home on 186 charter flights from 57 countries and territories.
"We have retained a repatriation team for the remainder of the year and boosted investment in our consular services and crisis management to ensure we are further prepared to support Brits caught up in the pandemic."
It said respondents to a survey it had conducted had found official advice "outdated or unhelpful," whilst four in ten were unable to contact their local embassy.
