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Select Committee · Public Accounts Committee

Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic

Status: Closed Opened: 25 Apr 2022 Closed: 14 Oct 2022 10 recommendations 20 conclusions 1 report

Putting cross-border travel measures in place during the COVID-19 pandemic often at speed to time-pressured deadlines then adapting and sustaining them required considerable efforts by government and others. Although individual departments have been monitoring their own spending on implementing cross-border travel measures in response to COVID-19, the National Audit Office (NAO) has found that Government …

Clear

Reports

1 report
Title HC No. Published Items Response
Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-border travel during the … HC 29 26 Jul 2022 30 Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

4 items
16 Conclusion Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde… Rejected

The NAO reported that government had no formal, agreed articulation of how competing objectives for...

The NAO reported that government had no formal, agreed articulation of how competing objectives for implementation of the system as a whole should be balanced and prioritised. We asked how government ensured that the seven separate programmes worked together to protect health without suppressing economic activity. The Cabinet Office stated …

Government response. The government disagrees with the committee's recommendation regarding the balancing and prioritisation of competing objectives, stating that they did take on board many of the CMA's recommendations and detailing actions taken.
HM Treasury
17 Recommendation Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde… Rejected

To preserve NHS testing capacity for domestic health monitoring, DHSC created a private sector market...

To preserve NHS testing capacity for domestic health monitoring, DHSC created a private sector market for PCR tests for people travelling. The number of firms offering PCR tests increased from 11 in December 2020 to at least 400 by September 2021. United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) has a three stage …

Government response. The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation, stating that it did take on board many of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) recommendations.
HM Treasury
18 Conclusion Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde… Rejected

DHSC told us that it had tried to ensure that the market could provide valid...

DHSC told us that it had tried to ensure that the market could provide valid and accurate tests, and that without its approach it would not have been able to develop the scale of testing market that it needed. We asked whether DHSC had reflected on the value of the …

Government response. The government disagrees with the Committee's recommendation because it did take on board many of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) recommendations; lists multiple specific actions it took to address the issues raised, and states that if health measures were …
HM Treasury
19 Recommendation Sixteenth Report - Managing cross-borde… Rejected

The NAO found that the price of PCR tests for prices ranged from £15 to...

The NAO found that the price of PCR tests for prices ranged from £15 to £525. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) reviewed the PCR testing market in August 2021 and found there was a ‘race to the bottom’ where providers were only competing on price so that companies selling …

Government response. The government disagrees with the recommendation, stating that it *did* take on board many of the CMA’s recommendations, and describes the actions taken in response to the CMA report.
HM Treasury

Oral evidence sessions

1 session
Date Witnesses
23 May 2022 Alex Chisholm · Cabinet Office, Gareth Davies · Department for Transport, Patricia Hayes · Home Office, Phil Douglas · Border Force, Shona Dunn · Home Office View ↗

Correspondence

2 letters
DateDirectionTitle
5 Jul 2022 — Correspondence from Dame Meg Hillier, Chair, Committee of Public Accounts to Pa…
14 Jun 2022 — Correspondence from Gareth Davies CB, Second Permanent Secretary, Department fo…