International Travel

Julian Sturdy Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

It is of course true that there is a third wave, given the delta variant. We in the United Kingdom are in the fortunate position of having our exceptional vaccination programme, which will allow us to open up on 19 July—provided that is confirmed on Monday. I have described from the Dispatch Box today how we will allow people who have been vaccinated through the UK vaccination programme to travel to amber list countries and to return, treating those countries as if they were on the green list. On the other side of that, we will work on a second phase to enable people to travel here. I am working closely with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to ensure that that can restart as soon as possible. We need to be able to trust other vaccination programmes and verify that those travelling here have had a particular type of test, of course. That is the best way to help travel firms in the hon. Lady’s constituency. I must point out that £7 billion is not a drop in the ocean. A lot of money has been spent supporting the travel sector, and we are proud to have done that, but the best thing will be to get the sector open again.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con) [V]]

This announcement is a big step in the right direction and will provide a much-needed boost for the travel sector, so I welcome what the Secretary of State has said. It also provides a meaningful choice of holiday destinations for families looking to go abroad this summer. However, the Secretary of State will be aware—the Chair of the Transport Committee touched on this—that testing requirements remain costly and burdensome, especially for families. He mentioned 31 July, but will he also commit to keeping the testing under regular review, and can he look not only at the cost but at the bureaucracy that goes with it, because that also has an impact on families going on holiday?

[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.