International Travel

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I thank my hon. Friend, who does a superb job as the Chair of the Select Committee and has been very consistent in his support for the aviation sector. He will be interested to know, as will the whole House, that we will have a further review date on 31 July. That is a checkpoint for the rules themselves. Currently, the scientific evidence is that PCR tests, in addition to being a bit more accurate, are also the ones in respect of which the genomes can be quickly sequenced to look for variants. My hon. Friend’s point about the FCDO and ensuring that all the advice ties together is well understood; we will make sure we work closely on that.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

This week, the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary warned of a considerable spike in infections, with perhaps 100,000 positive cases detected every day. That will clearly put pressure on our testing services, but it will also have a chilling effect on inbound travel, as people choose to travel to nations with lower infection rates. What kind of compensation is the Secretary of State looking to bring forward for the travel industry, because many travel companies in my constituency have really struggled over the past year as a result of the lack of Government support? Will he ensure that the support is long term, so that these companies have a bridge into their future?

[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.