Vague and costly recommendations are not enough to reboot
aviation and tourism sectors facing another summer without
international travel, says the Transport Committee.
In an analysis of the Government’s Global Travel Taskforce
Report, the Transport Committee concludes that the Report sets
out a framework without the detail required to restart
international travel. Where detail is provided, the costs may be
disproportionate to the risk and add £500 on to the cost of a
family of four travelling to the safest parts of the globe where
the vaccine roll-out is comparable to the UK.
This distinct lack of clarity does not offer confidence to
industry or consumers to plan, invest or recover from the
coronavirus pandemic. It leaves the planned safe restart of
international travel on May 17 in jeopardy.
The UK’s aviation and tourism sectors were poised to
accommodate the public’s desire to travel for business, study,
holidays and to visit loved-ones. The UK [aviation industry] has
been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, according to the
European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation. Another
summer without international travel heralds significant economic
adversity.
In today’s Report, the Committee sets out four clear
recommended actions for Government:
-
Populate the traffic-light framework with destination
countries by May 1 and announce the details in a statement to
Parliament.
-
Explain the criteria and mechanism by which countries
will move between risk categories by May 1.
-
Offer an affordable testing regime that supports public
health and safe travel for everyone by maximising the role of
lateral flow tests and ensuring the provision of affordable
polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, where required.
-
Act immediately to reduce waiting times and queues at the
UK border, including working bilaterally with partner countries
to agree mutual recognition of travel health certification,
deploying more staff at the border, processing passenger
locator forms before passengers arrive in the UK and
establishing an efficient system based on a single digital app
to process health certification submitted in a range of
languages.
Transport Committee Chair, , said:
“The aviation and travel sectors were crying out for a
functional report, setting out clear rules and offering
certainty. This is not it. Where the industry craved certainty,
the Government has failed to provide it. For UK citizens seeking
to travel to the parts of the globe where the vaccine has been
delivered as rapidly as the UK, the cost to families from testing
could be greater than the cost of the flights.
“This is a missed opportunity for the Government to
capitalise on the UK’s world-leading ‘vaccine dividend’. How can
it be right that hauliers, arriving from parts of the globe where
the vaccine roll-out is slow, are able to use cheaper lateral
flow testing whilst a trip back from Israel requires a PCR test
which is four times as expensive. This was an opportunity to
provide a global lead with standardised rules on international
health certification and promoting app-based technology, making
the processes at borders more secure and less time consuming. The
urgent situation facing the aviation and travel sectors warrants
a clear action plan to green light our travel – and the
Government must urgently set it out.”
