In a virtual event with the Conservative Friends of India, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel categorically addressed the concerns about the vaccine and said, “There is reluctance in some of our ethnic communities to take the vaccine. All sorts of disinformation is out there. Go out there and get the vaccine. Because if we lead this and step up to give others the reassurance of the vaccine, and that it is not conflicting with our religious beliefs of that nature, we will save lives in our community. It's in our mosques, in our mandirs, in our gurudwaras, please relay this message in our community.”
When asked when she’d be visiting India and how she would describe her relationship with India, the Home Secretary said, “India is personal to me. Also because of my personal relationship with Prime Minister Modi, he’s a fellow Gujarati, and he’s incredible in terms of his own achievements. He’s a fantastic leader and that speaks to our relationship and we saw that when PM Modi came over when we all worked together and made the Wembley event happen. So that speaks very much not just from a macro level but also from a personal level.” Patel revealed that PM Modi has been invited to the UK to attend the G7 in the summer.
“I’m very keen to go to India after we ease our lockdown and when there are better days ahead for all of us. I’ll definitely be going to India. My counterpart, Amitbhai (Amit Shah, Home Minister of India) is one of us basically in every sense of the word. For me it’s a marriage completely made in heaven,” she added.
Patel said, “We have changed our immigration system fundamentally. I have in fact in the last four months delivered a points based immigration system. Now that’s not a slogan, that is a brand new immigration system with the underpinned technology that has a tier based visa system approach.”
Raising a firm need to train the people of the UK in the healthcare sector, she said that sourcing nurses from India may not be the right approach when “India needs its nurses as well. We have to develop our talent domestically,” she added, “There’s a lot going on in the immigration front. People can come and work in our country. That has not happened in the last 47 years,” she said, citing this as a revolutionary development.
