WALES First Minister Mark Drakeford said he had “worries” about Boris Johnson’s comments that international travel could return in May and that he would instead “build the walls higher for now” to prevent bringing in coronavirus variants to the UK.

Mr Drakeford told a virtual meeting with Welsh businesses and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer: “It worries me hugely to hear the Prime Minister say that he intends to reopen international travel in May of this year.

“Our September in Wales was made far more difficult by the fact that we had a big importation of the virus from France, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey. Every day I will be reading of new outbreaks of people who have gone away, caught the virus and brought it back with them.

“If ever there was a year to be staying at home and to be enjoying all the fantastic things Wales has to offer, this must be it.

“I would build the walls higher for now against the risk that we would bring into this country the variants that could be brewing in any part of the world, and could then put at risk all the careful work we have done to try and keep Wales safe.”

In the same meeting, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the discovery of the Brazilian coronavirus variant in the UK shows the Government has not “secured our borders in the way we should have done”.

He said: “It demonstrates the slowness of the Government to close off even the major routes, but also the unwillingness to confront the fact that the virus doesn’t travel by direct flights.

“We know from last summer that a lot of virus came in from countries where it didn’t originate in, but people were coming indirect, and that’s the way people travel.

“I still think we haven’t secured our borders in the way we should have done, and the sooner that’s done the better.”