Live: Grant Shapps tears up current Covid travel rules to allow double-jabbed holidaymakers to get away

‘Still a barrier for those travelling’

Chairman of the Transport Select Committee Huw Merriman said: “This is a much-needed shot in the arm for those who’ve had two shots of the vaccine in their arm, and for an industry and workforce who have been laid low during the pandemic perhaps more than others, but have always been confident and steadfast in their belief that we can all travel safely again.”

“We know that for the last couple of months those who have come back from amber destinations, only 0.4% of those have tested positive for Covid, so can we perhaps look at the testing costs? They are still a barrier for those travelling, it would be great if rather than having an expensive PCR test, lateral flow could be used instead and those who do test positive could then use a PCR.”

Mr Shapps said: “We’ll have a further review date, that’s on the 31st of July, that’s a checkpoint for the rules themselves, that would be the date. Currently, the scientific evidence is that PCR tests in addition to being a bit more accurate are also the ones which can be quickly sequenced (for) genomes to look for variants as well.”

In response to a similar request from Conservative MP Julian Sturdy, he added: “What tends to happen is the narrative runs a bit behind what’s actually happening in the real world, so I jumped on the gov.uk website this morning to take a look at them myself. There are some very inexpensive tests, I think the cheapest I saw was £4.95 – now that’s actually quite specific because it referred to somebody turning up at an individual test centre, they may not live anywhere near to it.

“So let’s assume though that the cost of the test is higher than that, but also recognise that they’re no longer at the hundreds of pounds that was being quoted in the spring.

“We won’t be testing people for a moment longer than is required, but our primary responsibility, of course, of course, is to protect people in the UK – we do not want to have a variant come in that we simply fail to pick up.”