Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Antony Higginbotham and Grant Shapps

Thursday 11th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

What preparatory steps his Department is taking on the safe restart of international travel during the covid-19 pandemic.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)]

The Government have launched the global travel taskforce mark 2 in order to help facilitate international travel as we deal with this virus.

[Antony Higginbotham]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that thousands of manufacturing jobs in my constituency are reliant on the aerospace and aviation sector. What those people need more than anything else is aircraft in the air, flying again. Will my right hon. Friend set out what steps he is taking with global partners, including looking at schemes such as the International Air Transport Association’s travel pass, to get aircraft flying again in a way that is safe and sustainable?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He will recall that mark 1 of the global travel taskforce introduced test to release to assist with this. Mark 2 will introduce travel certification by using schemes such as IATA’s travel pass or the World Economic Forum’s CommonPass. He will be interested to know that I have been having conversations with my US counterpart and many others around the world to get that travel going again. The report will be on 12 April.