MPs demand travel ‘green list’ by 1 May

‘Where the industry craved certainty, the government has failed to provide it’ – Huw Merriman, chair of the Transport Committee

Cheap and cheerful? The Transport Select Committee has called for lateral flow devices to be used to test travellers (Simon Calder)

Reveal which nations are on the no-quarantine travel “green list” by 1 May: that is the demand made to government by MPs on the Transport Select Committee.

The call is part of the committee’s highly critical response to the latest report by the Global Travel Taskforce. In it, the government set out the “traffic light” system aimed at helping international travel to restart from as early as 17 May. But the nations in the “green” category, from which quarantine will not be required, are still unknown.

The Transport Select Committee chair, Huw Merriman, 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.”

He described the report as “a missed opportunity” to capitalise on the UK’s successful vaccination programme.

One of the witnesses was Brian Strutton, general secretary of the British Airline Pilots’ Association (Balpa).

He said: “The UK aviation and travel sectors face an urgent, existential crisis which is a result of government policies to control the coronavirus.

“Unless the transatlantic routes and a significant proportion of short-haul holiday routes are placed on the green list at the earliest opportunity then airlines and airports will need government funding to survive a bleak 2021.”

The all-party group of MPs also criticise of the testing requirements imposed on arrivals from “green” countries, and the costs involved.

Mr Merriman, the Tory MP for Bexhill and Battle, said: “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.

“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 report makes four demands of government “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”.

1. Populate the traffic-light framework with destination countries by 1 May.
2. Explain the criteria and mechanism by which countries will move between risk categories by 1 May.
3. 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 PCR tests.
4. Act immediately to reduce waiting times and queues at the UK border.

The committee heard from a Heathrow airport executive that some arrivals to the main entry point to the UK have had to wait up to six hours in recent weeks.

The aviation minister, Robert Courts, gave evidence to the MPs. On the subject of naming “green list” countries, he told the committee: “There is a tension between giving certainty and being accurate.

“We need to be in a position whereby when we make those decisions it is on the data that exists at that time. We are still some distance away from that date at the moment.

“I anticipate that in the early part of May we will be able to give some more detail into which category each country will fall.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said: “People in the UK have made immense sacrifices, both through lockdown and by coming forward in astonishing numbers for the vaccination and so it is only right that we don’t throw away the progress we’ve made through taking any unnecessary risks.

“That’s why the Taskforce has set out a cautious, but deliberate path to unlocking international travel in a safe and sustainable way, from 17 May at the earliest.”