Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to make COVID-19 PCR tests free in order to ease the travel expense burden on families.

We have no plans to provide free tests for international travel. Free National Health Service tests cannot be used for travel in order to preserve testing capacity and protect public health. We are committed to working with private testing providers to reduce the cost of testing. Since international travel testing requirements were introduced, the average cost of a day two polymerase chain reaction test has decreased to £45.

We have also reduced the cost of NHS Test and Trace tests for international arrivals from £88 to £68 for fully vaccinated arrivals and from £170 to £136 for two tests for arrivals who are not fully vaccinated. For United Kingdom residents or individuals with residency rights who would suffer severe financial hardship by paying the full cost of their managed quarantine or testing fees before they travel, hardship arrangements may be available.