Aviation Sector

Theresa May Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), to his place. In one sense, I welcome this debate, because it gives an opportunity for us all across the House to point out how important the aviation sector is to our economy, to jobs and, indeed, to global Britain. In another sense, I am rather sorry that we are having to have this debate, because it suggests that the Government have not quite yet got the message about the importance of the aviation sector.



Before I come to my main point, I wish to pick up on one of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), who referred to the British Airways situation. I have constituents affected by the British Airways decisions, about which I have had concerns that I have raised with the company, but I also have constituents who will be losing jobs at other airlines and at Heathrow airport itself. That is an impact of the rapid reduction in the number of people who are flying around the world. The best way to ensure that those people have jobs and to support those jobs is to get planes flying again. I welcome the fact that the Government have introduced the air bridges—that was a positive move—but I fear that the air bridges have increased not certainty but uncertainty for people, because of the constant changes that have taken place, sometimes within 24 hours.

Although I have some concerns about the air bridge policy, I wish to focus on testing, and I welcome what the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) said about the importance of testing. First, let me set out the background. This is an important point: stopping people flying into the UK is not going to mean that there is no virus here in the UK—the virus is here; we are going to continue to have cases of covid and will have more cases in the coming months—but it does mean job losses and a negative impact on our economy. Passenger numbers at Heathrow have fallen by 82% and cargo is down 35%. It is reckoned that for every 1,000 passengers, one job is created. The fewer passengers, the fewer jobs. Cargo is also important, particularly for the UK as we are looking to improve our trading relationships around the world, and a lot of cargo is carried on passenger flights.

Sadly, there are those who say that if we want to promote testing and therefore reduce quarantine and increase the number of flights, we are putting public health at risk and putting the economy first. This is not an either/or situation; it is about assessing the proportionate risks. It is about mitigating the risk of people coming into the UK with the virus while at the same time reducing the risk of a damaging impact on the economy. I am certain that testing has to be the way forward in the foreseeable future, but at the moment airports are not even permitted to trial tests on passengers.

It is incredibly important that, far from leading the world, the UK is lagging behind. Japan has been testing since April, and Germany, France, Austria and Iceland all have testing, which variously reduces the quarantine period or means that people can abandon it. In all, 30 countries have testing facilities at their airports. British companies, with their ingenuity, have been developing new rapid tests—TravelSafe Systems recently demonstrated one to me in a GP surgery in my constituency. The infrastructure is there and the testing capability is there and being advanced as we speak.

Crucially, trials would provide data. Currently, decisions are taken on the basis of modelling, which has not proved itself to be infallible during this pandemic. Real data would be much a better basis for making decisions. The Government’s position currently appears to be that if there is a risk with testing that one person has a false negative, we cannot test anybody. That is a counsel of perfection and it is wrong. We have to see testing introduced in our airports. We are talking about not a single test to abandon all quarantine, but possibly a test on arrival and a test a few days later to reduce the quarantine period.

I am sorry that the Minister finds himself responding to this debate, because I think the DFT gets this, so my message is to No. 10, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Care, and it is a simple one: if we want to get the economy moving, and if we want to get planes flying again, give airports permission to trial tests. Stop the UK dragging its feet; let us lead the world and set the standard to restore world travel and world trade.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I have to reduce the time limit to three minutes.