Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the (a) merits of recent requests to provide covid-19 testing at airports and (b) potential merits of allocating funding to airport management companies to enable them to provide that service.

The Government is actively working on the practicalities of using testing to release people from self-isolation earlier than 14 days. The Global Travel Taskforce is working at pace to consider how testing, technology and innovation can drive a recovery for international travel and tourism, without adding to infection risk or infringing on our overall NHS test capacity.

Public Health England prepared a paper on the effectiveness of ‘double testing’ travellers coming to the UK. The paper is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phe-investigation-into-the-effectiveness-of-double-testing-travellers-incoming-to-the-uk-for-signs-of-covid-19-17-june-2020.