Select committee: Transport Committee
Recommendation 2
Seventh Report - Safe return of international travel?
Published 22 Apr 2021
Paragraph 18
Addressed to Department for Transport
Transport Committee Global Travel Task Force All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
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.
From: Transport Committee, Seventh Report - Safe return of international travel? (HC 1341), paragraph 18, 22 April 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 1 July 2021 (deadline 22 June 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government says it agrees with the aim of most of the Committee's four recommendations on international travel, and states that it "partially agrees" with the fourth, on border queues.
- On the traffic-light framework, the government "agrees" that clarity for individuals and industry is of "utmost importance". It announced a restart from 17 May with a list of green, amber and red countries.
- On the criteria for moving countries between categories, it says allocations are "reviewed every three weeks" and that measures will be reviewed at checkpoint reviews "no later than the 28 June, 31 July and 1 October".
- On testing, it "agrees with the aim" and is working to reduce costs, but says PCR testing "is currently necessary to identify variants of concern" even as it agrees with maximising the role of antigen tests.
- On border queues, it says automation of the Passenger Locator Form and upgrades to border systems "will be in place by Autumn 2021, with major UK ports complete this Summer". Translation of the form will be progressed "as soon as possible".