International Travel — House of Lords, 2020-09-09
Topic: Health
Jennifer Elizabeth Randerson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am glad to see this small step forward towards a more logical approach to quarantine. I am particularly pleased that the Government are looking at testing combined with shorter quarantine, although news of problems with the Test and Trace system does not convince me that it will be introduced effectively and soon. However, I hope we are seeing the signals of a less chaotic approach from the Government and fewer U-turns, because we are still suffering, as a nation, from the Government’s inexplicable decision to abandon testing and quarantine for returning travellers back in March, which meant that tens of thousands of people entered the UK unchecked from areas which had higher infection rates. Clearly, many of them brought their infections with them My first question to the Minister relates to the reference in the Statement to FCO advice. Can the Minister explain why there would ever be different quarantine advice from the FCO and DfT? I realise there was at one point, but that was put right within 24 hours or so. I am asking this question because there are clearly insurance implications for travellers if there are two conflicting sets of advice from the Government There is nothing in the Statement about the timescales between the regular quarantine announcements, which usually are made on Thursday—although one was made on Monday this week—and the imposition of quarantine, which is normally at 4 am on a Saturday. Would it not be possible to extend this period to give travellers abroad longer to pack their bags, buy a new ticket and make their way back to the UK? Most travel, certainly holiday travel, tends to be from weekend to weekend. If the Government were to act slightly sooner, it would give people longer. If you think back to the situation in France, which is a country many people drive to on holidays, many people who were in the south of France found it physically impossible to get back to the UK, even if they could get a ticket for a ferry or the tunnel. They could not drive back through France safely to get to the UK before the quarantine was imposed. The tight timescale has done a lot to add to the overall nervousness about foreign travel Finally, I want to talk about the situation in aviation as a whole, which, as a sector, is struggling. Airports, in particular, are struggling and time is running out for some of our smaller airports. They do not have major foreign backers, like some airlines. Some are local authority-owned. Many are owned, in effect, by pension funds. You can mothball planes but you cannot mothball airports. For safety reasons, they have to maintain many staff and many of their operations, even when they have few paying customers. For instance, they must have all the experts on site to be able to host emergency flights and landings—for air ambulances, for example Unlike restaurants, airports have had no package of measures targeted specifically at them. Unlike restaurants, they have huge capital investment. I urge the Government to devise some tailored help for this beleaguered industry and to do it soon. One example would be relief from business rates for airports in England, so that they come into line with Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is irrelevant in Wales because the Government own the airport. They need this tailored help soon. The opportunity is there for the Government to ensure that the aviation industry becomes more environmentally friendly, because they can put conditions on their help. They can make sure that the development of airports in the future is much more environmentally friendly than it is at this moment. They can do that as a condition of their help. I urge the Minister to consult her colleagues and to announce something soon.