Source · Select Committees · Transport Committee
Recommendation 2
2
Accepted in Part
To allow the aviation and tourism sectors to prepare for restart and recovery and to...
Recommendation
To allow the aviation and tourism sectors to prepare for restart and recovery and to accommodate the public’s desire to travel for business, study, families and holidays, the Government must: a) populate the traffic-light framework with destination countries by 1 May 2021 at the latest and announce that classification of destination countries in a statement to Parliament; b) explain the criteria and mechanism by which countries will move between risk categories by 1 May 2021 at the latest; c) facilitate an affordable testing regime that supports public health and safe travel for everyone by maximising the role of antigen tests and ensuring the provision of affordable polymerase chain reaction tests, where required; and d) 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. (Paragraph 18) Safe return of international travel? 9
Government response summary AI-generated
The government stated that the JBC published its methodology for country risk allocation on May 7th and that measures will be reviewed regularly. However, the response did not address the specific deadlines for populating the framework, facilitating affordable testing, or reducing border waiting times.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Accepted in Part
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted in Part
UK Government partially agrees with this recommendation. The absolute priority remains the need to protect our recovery from COVID-19 and safeguard our vaccination programme through preventing the importation of new variants of concern. It is vital, therefore, that time spent at the border is balanced alongside a safe and robust set of passenger requirements. We have introduced a range of new measures for international travel that did not exist prior to COVID-19. The result of these requirements is additional time spent at the border to ensure compliance. We are actively taking steps to reduce queue times where practicable. A key part of this programme of work is the automation of the Passenger Locator Form (PLF) and upgrades to Border Crossing systems to check all passengers have completed their requirements without the need for manual checks. These will be in place by Autumn 2021, with major UK ports complete this Summer. This will support efforts to reduce queue times. It is worth noting that passenger compliance is already very high thanks to the dedication of carriers who are ensuring nearly 100% compliance with all border health measures (negative test plus completed PLF) before passengers depart to the UK. In future the manual checks being performed by carriers will also be replaced by automated checks. We will review and reduce the multiple fines carriers are subject to as we automate the PLF whilst maintaining high assurance. Government also recognises the importance of translating the Passenger Locator Form and other documentation into other languages and this will be progressed as soon as possible. Government has also maintained a leadership role within various multilateral organisations including the ICAO, IMO and OECD as well as continuing to work with the G7, G20 and Five Eyes groups. 1 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-response-spring-2021/covid-19-response-spring-2021-summary Published: 1 July 2021 Site information Accessibility statement
Read the full response on Parliament ↗