International Travel

Huw Merriman Excerpts

Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I was somewhat surprised not to hear him refer to the stand-out announcement in my statement, which is that the world’s busiest, most profitable and most important airline route—the transatlantic route—is about to be reopened. I would have thought he would welcome that from the Front Bench.

It is hard to know exactly what the Opposition think on this subject. Last year, they backed our self-isolation measures. By last summer, the hon. Gentleman was calling for quarantine to be lessened. Come February, they changed their mind again and wanted every single traveller to go into hotel quarantine. By March, they were back saying that it should be done on a case-by-case basis. Fast-forward to May, and the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), called for a complete pause on international travel—I am curious how that would help the aviation sector restart—only to be contradicted a month later by the hon. Gentleman, saying that more countries should go on to the green list. In June, he called for the amber list to be scrapped, and by August he was back to saying that there should be no loosening of international travel whatever. What he seems to be saying is basically what a stopped clock says. It is right at least twice a day—in his case, at least twice a year—but I am not clear how his approach would help in any way, shape or form.

The hon. Gentleman asked about Joint Biosecurity Centre assessments. They will be published in the normal way for the additional countries. He asked about the cost of testing. I thought he was calling for PCR tests for everyone—at least, he was at one of those points in the past year and a half. The cost of a lateral flow test will obviously be much less and provided by the private sector, with the PCR provided by the NHS.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the vaccine passport. Again, I reiterate that there are 50 countries where we will recognise their vaccination progress. I described in my statement how we are introducing a system so that we can onboard and add other countries who meet our level of requirements. As I say, the most important country of all in terms of international aviation, the USA, has confirmed today that we will be added to the vaccine passport approach as well. We are making progress. If we had listened to the Labour party—I do not know, perhaps we would have closed down the whole of aviation by now.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I welcome the milestones announced by the Secretary of State for Transport. I recognise his hard work as well as that of the aviation Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in unlocking us further. I know you, Mr Deputy Speaker, will be as excited as me about the ability to visit the United States, for loved ones to reunite and for business to expand. This is more welcome news. With all this fantastic news, can I ask the Secretary of State for Transport to ensure that we have the resilience, through border control, at arrivals to ensure that all this demand that is about to be unleashed can be delivered?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is an excellent Chair of the Select Committee on Transport—always tough, but fair. He has rightly pointed out that there is likely to be a big expansion in the amount of transatlantic and other aviation. Things such as the pre-departure test form will be greatly simplified by not having to prove a pre-departure test at check-in. On the other side, coming back into the UK, it is Border Force that runs those services. It has spent a lot of time over the summer integrating pre-departure tests, vaccine status and other information into its e-gates. It is now trying to incorporate that. I will certainly be reflecting his comments in discussions with the Home Office, which runs Border Force and will want to make things as smooth as possible as the numbers pick up.