A political member of the Department of Health and Social Care has broken ranks to criticise the government’s new border policy.

Jason Moorhouse MHK was one of five members of Tynwald to vote against the easing of border restrictions on Friday. His criticism comes as another backbencher tells the Examiner that the government is being reckless and a group created to advise the government about Covid-19 says that the Delta variant is out of control and that mitigation measures don’t go far enough.

Mr Moorhouse criticised the government for refusing to allow Public Health director Dr Henrietta Ewart to appear before Parliament and answer members’ questions.

’What does the Council of Ministers have to hide?’ Mr Moorhouse told the Examiner.

’Dr Ewart is providing advice. There’s been a suggestion that there have been occasions when that advice was not taken on board.’

He said testing on arrival should be re-introduced, particularly now that Jersey and Guernsey are testing all visitors for the virus.

’That’s a major concern,’ he said. ’I think visitors would expect to have a test. You want to go into a safe environment. At the moment, people do not feel safe. We have gone from baby steps to flying without wings.

’While we do have to move forward I’m concerned about the impact on the island. We have a massive increase in positive cases and lots of my constituents have contacted me. What we are doing is not sensible. It’s a huge leap.’