International Travel

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I certainly welcome my hon. Friend’s welcome of the policy. On the cost of testing, the narrative tends to run a little behind what is happening in the real world, so I jumped on the gov.uk website this morning to take a look, and there are some very inexpensive tests available. The cheapest I saw was £4.95, although that was quite specific because it referred to an individual test centre, which might be nowhere near. Let us assume that the costs are higher than that, but recognise that they are no longer the hundreds of pounds quoted in the spring. I want to see the costs continue to be driven down. I give him an assurance that we will carry on working with the scientists and looking at the data. We will not be testing people for a moment longer than is required, but our primary responsibility is to protect people in the UK. We do not want a variant to come in that we simply fail to pick up.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab) [V]]

I warmly welcome this statement, which finally restores to us some of the freedoms that our European neighbours and Americans have been enjoying for some considerable time. If I understood the Secretary of State correctly, the green list testing requirements will still leave travel more restricted this summer than it was last summer, when we did not have the vaccines. As he will understand, reciprocity is absolutely vital for travel, and the lack of immediate reciprocity for other countries means that they are less likely to open up to us anytime soon. So why, when many European countries already accept our vaccine passport, are we incapable of accepting theirs now?

[Grant Shapps]

Of course reciprocity is very important. I have already explained the situation with the United States, and reciprocity would involve it not having Executive Order 212(f) in place, which would immediately relieve some of the issues. They still have 50 different ways to verify tests, because there is no central system—each state has its own version. The European example is better, as the right hon. Gentleman says. I am working very closely with my European counterparts and in regular contact with them. We wanted to have a first phase in place as quickly as possible—easy to verify through the UK vaccine programme—but we will move as quickly as possible to the next phase, to satisfy his concerns, working with other countries, including on the EU digital passport.