International Travel

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson, Gavin Newlands.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. It has become increasingly clear that the much vaunted four-nations approach often stems from situations where the devolved Governments are left with little choice, given the nature of the devolution funding settlement. Whether for furlough, community testing, or the various travel arrangements, when the devolved Governments perhaps took a different view, at least with the timing of such decisions, no public money would be made available for a different public health approach. It is not quite a “do as I say” approach; it is more a “do as we will fund” approach. Borrowed funds are obviously not available to the devolved Administrations, and as the Secretary of State alluded, the Welsh Government have said they are extremely disappointed at the dropping of testing requirements. The Scottish Government have said that they followed the UK Government to avoid the harm to tourism caused by non-alignment. Is this another example of the UK Government making a decision, and strong-arming the devolved Administrations into following them to avoid economic disadvantage?

Despite the unease that some members of society will have following these announcements, particularly given the rather nebulous commitment to continued surveillance, this is welcome news for the aviation and travel sectors, which come out of the pandemic in much poorer, smaller and less competitive shape than they entered it. That is largely a result of the extremely poor support given to the sector, in which the UK stood out among top aviation markets for its paucity of support.

The future is far from certain with events in Ukraine and covid potentially causing disruption as well as the cost of living, as has been alluded to. So I would like the Government to commit to being a bit more fleet of foot on aviation support should the need arise. Indeed, when will the strategic aviation review be published?

The UK Government have said that the UK Health Security Agency will continue to monitor variants of concern, so, further to the concerns outlined by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), will the Secretary of State explain what measures will be part of that continued monitoring, how long it will operate for and how it will be funded? Lastly, what consideration at all did the Secretary of State give to the position of devolved Governments in reaching the decision that he has announced?

[Grant Shapps]

I should point out to the hon. Gentleman and the House that the UK Health Security Agency is a four-nations body made up of the chief medical officers from all parts of the United Kingdom, including Scotland. Therefore, when we came to yesterday’s discussion at Covid-O, which included Scottish Ministers, we could take into account the advice provided. I do not want to accuse him of being happy to see the forms and bureaucracy scrapped while still somehow opposing it, but it seems to me that if one is really serious about cutting bureaucracy, one should welcome this step.

The hon. Gentleman refers to support that he claims the Scottish Government have given to aviation, but it is worth reminding the House that that is not what Edinburgh and Glasgow airports have said. They were upset that Ministers in Scotland refused to meet them, which they said was “galling” and in “stark contrast” to the UK Government’s approach. Indeed, the Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association said that its industry had been “sacrificed” by the SNP—its word rather than mine. It is important to say that we are supporting the sector, not least by removing these restrictions.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the strategic aviation review. I hope he will accept that there is no point in carrying out a review during omicron and covid—we want to do it as the industry comes out—so that will be forthcoming. He asked a sensible question about continued monitoring, which will happen in two ways. First, he will be familiar with me having said many times at the Dispatch Box when we were in the midst of the pandemic that the UK was carrying out up to 50% of the genomic sequencing in the entire world. That figure is now different, because we have helped and other countries have caught up, so, although we are carrying on our programme, much of that genomic sequencing is happening around the world rather than needing to be done specifically here. Secondly, we have the programme led by the Office for National Statistics that carries on finding out where coronavirus is in the country and the extent to which different variants might be starting to take hold. We can therefore continue to monitor things comprehensively through both genomic sequencing and the covid-19 infection survey of the population.