International Travel

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I will certainly be very pleased to return to this House with further details as soon as next month. I explained in my opening remarks that there are quite a number of complexities to do with how we treat children and younger people who have not yet had the opportunity to have two vaccinations. Although we will have everybody on a single vaccination, promised by 19 July, there will still be significant numbers who would not be able to travel under that system, so there are a lot of fairness issues to resolve too. However, like my hon. Friend, I share the absolute desire to return international travel as soon as we practically can to something as close as possible to normality, while recognising that it is important that we ensure that variants of concern are properly monitored and not brought into this country. One of the problems that we have is that no other country in the world sequences the genome at the rate that we do, which means that it is sometimes very difficult to tell what is happening in other countries, so we sometimes have to be cautious, but I will return to this House.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP) [V]]

Aviation is the hardest-hit sector, according to the Office for National Statistics. One third of the 6,000 jobs based at Glasgow airport and countless more in the supply chain are gone, a proportion that is common in the sector. In business travel, 60% of workers have gone and of those who remain, 80% are on furlough, and that is the key point: hundreds of thousands of jobs have gone while there is a job retention scheme in place.

This is the 36th time I have asked about support for the aviation sector since the start of the pandemic, back in the day when the Secretary of State was boasting of saving Flybe and the Chancellor was promising a sector-specific deal. With many parts of Europe now wary of the UK delta variant outbreak, five bleak winters in a row beckon for the sector. Are the Government finally considering keeping their word on grant support and extending its limited and capped business rates support to at least match the duration of the unlimited cover in Scotland? Crucially, is the Secretary of State lobbying the Treasury to extend furlough for the sector? Finally, does the clinical advice given to the Government fully support these decisions on double vaccines for travellers and travel to amber list countries?

[Grant Shapps]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who often speaks up for aviation, given the airport-constituency connection that he has. I point out again that we have provided billions of pounds of support for the aviation sector, including to the Scottish aviation sector, through money that has gone from the furlough programme, for example.

The hon. Gentleman asked a series of questions, and I fear I may have to redirect him in some cases to his own Scottish Government, because I have the Scottish airports constantly on the line to me complaining about the actions of the Scottish Government, who seem to do everything they possibly can to make it harder for airlines and airports to see a route to a recovery. That said, there was a strong degree of work together to bring in the latest changes to the traffic light system.